


Heartsick

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Category: Bleach
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Inspired by Persona Series, M/M, Persona 5 AU, Plot, Rebellion, being a phantom thief is gay culture, ships and plot alike to be revealed EVENTUALLY
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-02-10 15:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12914904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: (Inspired by Persona 5) Rukia has a good heart and rotten luck. After being expelled from her university, her brother decides to send Rukia to live in Shibuya until the controversy settles down. All Rukia needs to do is be a good little heiress in the city for a full year, then she can ŗe̵̜̻̗͕̜t͎u͔͓͎͈̳͈r̞͎̟̩͢n̟̫̣̞ͅ ̻̰͉t̩o̜̻ͅ h҉e̻͙͎̝̫̕r҉̻̘̩̰͚͕ ̡̞q͖͔̣̞̜u̥͚̱̞̟͘i̱̘͇̹̥̘ͅe̸̬̘̖̱̬̫̰ṭ̗̦͉͙͜ͅ ͓͢a̡͚͔̘̹n̵͎͇ḓ̢ͅ ̵̺̼b̷o͇r̴̻̠͚i̥̦̼̲͔̦n͎̟g͖ ͡ḷ̸̲̪̮̦̹i̝͙f̷͎e̸͖ ̬̞o̱̺̤͇f̭͉͍̲̝͚̫ ̪̤͢a̼ ̖͇͖͍͙̮͘c͖͔̥̥̼͠o̞m̨̭̘͍̟̟p̞͕̦̹̲͚̜l̷̘̬e͓̹̜̜̗̳̩t͈̣̻͓͎͚̙e͔͙̭̠͖͓̯l̰͎y͚̗̣̣ ̥̠͍n̗̬o̬̯͚̦̲͞r͙̺m͖̰̙̼̙͙̥a̻l ̨̠c͕̣͍̞̙̮̥̕o͕̲̬̹l͍͓̜͕̳͕͡l͖͓̭ę̜̩̬̹ģ̦̭͕̪e̠͖̘̪̥̭̠ ͈͞s̕t͈̻͡u̖̱̺̫d̴͖̫͚͙̝̗̗e̬̘̫͎͇͚̘n̗͚͔͈͍̹͜t̫̭̙͚͓̬̤͜.̝̱̺The world is not what it seems. Society is poisoned by injustice and greed.You have been assigned to a terrible fate. Two choices remain-- submit to captivity, or collect others like you and work together to change society.Will you liberate yourself?yes/no





	1. The Fool (I)

**Author's Note:**

> The contract has been signed.  
> Let us begin the game

Rukia leans back into the lush seat of stiff leather, folding her legs over each other and finding a place for her hands in her lap. In the spacious interior of the car she could easily stretch out, even roll the seat backwards and have a nice nap in the polished, professional black interior of the Lexus. But she’d rather not.

The door on the driver’s side opens up, Byakuya seats himself and the gunmetal gray of his suit folds seamlessly into the back of the car seat. Key in the ignition, the engine quietly thrums to life and begins it’s roll out of the driveway and past the wide, ivy-coated gates.

“You have packed everything you require?” He asks, hands on the steering wheel and windshield wipers pushing aside last night’s humidity from his view. “You shouldn't worry. Anything you forgot can be replaced once you’ve settled in. It is a long trip, however, so if there’s something you need we could go back and get it now.”

It’s still warm and muggy outside, a hot and humid summer morning fogging up the car windows even as the air conditioner gently bombasts Rukia with freezing air. These luxury cars are unbearably finicky, all tuned up and impersonal, and Byakuya is particular about the controls. Rukia wouldn’t mind just driving herself for the long and lonely drip, though she has no idea where she’s going.

Also hey, no license. Who drives anyways in this day and age?

“I packed up all my things last night. I wouldn’t want to bring too much and burden my hosts.” Rukia answers tersely. She said all her goodbyes as well, not that anybody was asking or whatever.

Byakuya must sense her tone, because his eyes flick to her with dripping disapproval before fixing themselves back on the road. “You are cross with me. I understand, but you will come to appreciate why I am asking you to do this. It is better for you not to be home right now.”

 

Her name is Rukia Kuchiki. She has the Kuchiki name, but not the blood. She has no parents, but she has a legacy to continue. People describe her as being responsible, respectable, and proper. All, of course, based on how she usually acts when attention has been thrown on her. People only notice when they're watching.

 

“No member of the Kuchiki family has ever been expelled before.” Byakuya says, which Rukia is almost positive can’t be true. At the very least, no Kuchiki’s money has ever been turned away from an esteemed private college, where prominent alumni from a century ago still have their portraits leafed in gold across the halls. “You need to seriously reflect on how the choices you make will impact your future.”

 

She was a good student, for what it’s worth. Quiet, maybe. Slow to make friends or break the mold. Rukia’s professors and classmates probably wouldn’t even have noticed she was there if she didn’t have her family’s illustrious name pinned to her person.

Maybe that should have been enough, you know? Like, if there was ever a time for being a Kuchiki to work in Rukia’s favor, it should have been in calling out a dishonorable professor trying to skeeve around with his female students. But, alas, they liked crusty old perverts more than they liked sassy upstarts defaming their precious tenured creeps. Who could have possibly predicted that this is how things would have played out? What a shocking surprise!

 

“Ginrei suggests that perhaps you are lacking direction. It seems that many young people your age are prone to acting out because they require an outlet for their excess energy. With so many distractions in this new age, it’s natural you would find it difficult to focus.” Byakuya says, as if he or his grandfather are any sort of experts on what is best for Rukia. That is their job, she supposes- to tell her where to go, what to do. To keep her safe, on the oath of a dead woman. “You are familiar with the proverb about the blades of grass, yes? The blade that stands the tallest is the one that needs to be trimmed down.”

Rukia inhales. The clouds overhead break into a fresh rainfall, splattering against the roof of the car like tapping fingernails. Byakuya continues with a wary edge to his voice. “There are some members of the Kuchiki family who believe that the outlet you may require is companionship. A suitable partner, even. Maybe you would be happier if you had a husband and children to care for-”

“That’s-” Rukia balks, feels herself go pallid. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“It’s certainly not a reflection of my personal feelings on the matter. Or my support, if that’s what you’re asking, but traditions do have their function in our society. We all have our responsibilities.” Byakuya says sternly, his hands tense on the steering wheel. “You see now why I am sending you to Shihoin, yes? That you may have a fresh start to prove yourself to our family.”

In Rukia’s mind, her brain tries to grapple with the infuriating logic loop. First, she isn’t enough of a Kuchiki because of her lineage. Now, she’s not good enough because she’s not marrying another noble and busying herself with spawning. Sounds about on track for her experiences, really. Perhaps it’s more surprising that she didn’t predict this long in advance.

She watches Byakuya pull the sleek car through the highway, his dark hair recently trimmed and barely grazing the stiff, white collar of his silk dress shirt. She sees how this is his way of protecting her. If Rukia is out of sight, then she’s out of mind. It’s been useful advice for her all her life.

Byakuya’s thin lips hover between an impassive grim line and a twitching frown. He’s not so unreadable, now that Rukia has had years to know him. When he speaks, his voice is bland and dry, crisp in her ears.

“You know that this changes nothing, of course. Even outside the manor, you still represent the Kuchiki family. Work hard. Do well in school, study something practical and stay out of trouble, and within a year we will have this mess sorted out.”

In the rearview mirror, the sleepy and quiet town of Karakura drifts further and further into the distance and the mist. It’s traded in for the rank city smog of Tokyo hurtling into view, the skyscrapers of Shinjuku jutting out of the earth up into the heavens.

After the cold air blasts her eyes, making her blink watery and hard, Rukia finally turns the fan away with her fingertips. There is no point in asking whether, when Byakuya referred to the mess to be sorted out, he meant the university or her.

 

 

**Your life is not your own to control.**

**Though all your life you have been a prisoner of fate, today you realize how tightly the shackles of your captivity have closed in, chaining you to a future you did not ask for and do not desire.**

**This is an unfair story that you have been forced into. As of now, you stand no chance of rewriting the destiny that has already been decided.**

**But there is a way to undo all of this. To erase the ending and begin this world anew.**

**A world where you can be free.**

Rukia’s eyes fly open, neck and shoulders jolting up as the car halts suddenly. She hadn’t even realized she had fallen asleep, though the stiff pain in her tailbone rudely informs her that it’s been at least a few hours since she moved.

“Nii-sama?” She asks sleepily, rubbing her eye as Byakuya kills the engine before peering out the window. This neighborhood doesn’t look like the kind of place he’d want to leave his Lexus out in the rain.

“We’ve arrived.” He pulls an compact umbrella from the glove compartment, opening the car door and unfurling it against the rainfall like a shield. Rukia ponders if there’s been some sort of mix-up, and Byakuya is going to go on for as long as his infamous pride will allow before admitting that he perhaps as made an embarrassing error. The head of the Kuchiki family? Make a wrong turn? Absolutely unheard of!

The streets are claustrophobically appropriate for a Shibuya suburb, all high roofs to compensate for the lack of ground space. The buildings look awfully gloomy. Old, but not old like the antique Kuchiki estate buildings. Old like it’s been forgotten, gray in the muggy rain and looking even more miserable.

Rukia is surprised there’s even room for the car on this street. Her shoes land in cobblestone puddles as Byakuya holds the umbrella over her head, hovering behind her shoulder while Rukia circles to the trunk and pulls out both of her bags. It’s kind of haunting- they’re the only two people out in the street in this weather. Rukia half-expects to turn around and see a white-faced ghost telling her that she’ll die in seven days.

“Shihoin and her associates are not the most… collected group of people.” Byakuya says, leading her around the corner to an unpaved alley. The only building of note is a low, wooden structure with a dark porch, which Rukia feels they are hurtling towards with impending slowness. “But she is still reputable. She’ll make sure you are cared for.”

Rukia remembers Yoruichi Shihoin. Vaguely. From her recollections, the chances of that woman in particular taking care of anyone is hilariously debatable.

The sign on the door announces the “Urahara Shoten: A shop for common goods and delights”, which is a questionable branding at best. It’s a good thing her opinion doesn’t matter, or she might have some strong inclinations she’d be tempted to voice.

Byakuya raps his knuckles against the door; once, twice, then a third time, and they wait.

And they wait.

And they wait longer.

Rukia is beginning to shoot Byakuya some worried glances, imagining that he has to be debating the option of just releasing Rukia into the wild to become a wolfgirl. Finally, there’s a loud clattering sound that crashes from within the building, a sound like someone is running very fast and knocking many things over, before the door swings open to reveal perhaps the tallest man that Rukia has ever seen.

She has to bend backwards a little bit to clearly see his face, and yet still Rukia can’t quite make out the man’s eyes behind his thick glasses. His mustache looks supremely distinguished, though the blue apron and matching oven mitts appear less so. “Kuchiki-sama, Kuchiki-san, please come right in.” He says, in a fashion that sounds more like a command than a polite suggestion. Rukia quickly skitters in behind Byakuya, who deposits his umbrella in the barren stand by the door.

“Please, young lady. Allow me.” The man says, stuffing his oven mitts into his apron pocket and holding his catching-mit sized hand out. Rukia blinks at it dumbly before realizing what he means, then scrambles to hand him her suitcase.

“Right! Thank you, Mr…”

He bows slightly but stiffy to her, long braids whipping haphazardly through the air. “My apologies, young lady! My name is Tessai Tsukabishi, I am one of the managers of this store. It is a delight to be housing you.”

‘This store’, indeed. Rukia scans the front room, past racks of magazines and shelves of kitschy toys and knick-knacks. She fails to find absolutely anything that could feasibly be of use to any human being, unless one was desperate for something to decorate end tables or maybe housed some wild beast that ate nothing but hideous snowglobes. It looks like a typical tourist trap, without any of the tourists.

“Is she in right now?” Byakuya asks, the haughtiness in his voice probably instinctual and compulsive by this point. Tsukabishi, however, appears unphased, holding Rukia’s heavy suitcase in his hand as if it were full of air.

“I’m afraid she was called away on urgent business, you just missed her.” He says primly, then gestures to a green curtain at the very back of the storefront that appears to serve as a door to the rest of the building. “You may talk to the Boss, and he can fill you in on any topic you may have questions about.”

“Very good.” Byakuya says in a tone that suggests things are not very good at all. That things are perhaps sub-par on their level of goodness, to say the very least. He begins to stride towards the back room, speaking to Rukia over his shoulder. “You should get settled in. I’m sure you would like to get comfortable after the long drive here.”

Rukia feels her skin flush hot with embarrassment. Dismissed while the grown-ups are talking, no doubt. Rukia will be 22 in January. She wonders if Byakuya will discuss her curfew with this mysterious Boss.

Still, she contains her own petty anger. Rukia follows Tsukabashi up a narrow flight of stairs to the building’s second floor. This place looks so old, Rukia is surprised there’s electrical lighting. She just has to hope she’ll be lucky and find a useable outlet to charge her phone and a faint wifi signal.

“This is our guestroom. I hope you find it serviceable.” Tsukabashi slides open a door to clean, drab room straight out of someone’s little log cabin in the woods. It has that alien feeling of never being occupied, the bed looking crisp and starchy and a writing desk holding a single lamp.

He puts Rukia’s suitcase down gently in the middle of the room. He looks towards her, and for the first time Rukua can see a glimpse of his green eyes under the rectangle glasses and furrowed brows. “Kuchiki-san, is something wrong? I realize this is perhaps not what you’re used to, but these modest accommodations will suit you fine.”

Rukia realizes she must look unhappy- not that she isn’t, of course, but to most people she’s just a spoiled heiress. A helpless princess kicked out of the castle. She has to work twice as hard to appear modest. “No, I’m sorry Tsukabashi-san. This is lovely.” She walks inside, resisting the impulse to sneeze as dust is sucked into her nose, and places her backpack on the bed. “Like my brother said, I’m just a little tired from the trip.”

“I see.”

It sounds like Tessai’s voice has softened a little bit, but she can’t fully tell. “I will give you some privacy to relax. When you are ready there is tea downstairs, but take as long as you like.”

He leaves the door open as he descends down the staircase again, and Rukia figures that if it’s just her up here then she has no need to close it and shut herself in. First thing’s first, she pulls her backpack to her hip and unzips it.

Byakuya encouraged Rukia to dress nicely for the trip, on the basis of making a good impression. What she decided on was a navy-blue camisole under a white button-up blouse and black pencil skirt. She looks, Rukia thinks, a little like a school teacher from the 30’s or something, but it earned even Ginrei’s seal of approval before she was packed into the car. Now, she rolls up her stiff skirt around her thighs so that she can lay her computer out on her lap.

According to the letter of transfer in her email, Gotei University’s fall semester will begin in a week. The message comes with a fancy digital embossing on the email, like any student would be impressed that the faculty knows how to insert a jpeg.

She’s grateful, at least, that with classes Rukia will have something to focus on besides the Kuchiki family, or any doomsday threats of obligatory matrimonial bliss. She can get out of the house. Study hard. Stay on her best behavior, just like Byakuya said. Nothing could be simpler.

Awoken by her online presence, Butterfly turns itself on and pops up on screen. Rukia frowns, watching the window of the Butterfly messaging app try to inform her that she has several missed messages, all of them flashing orange at her like hazard lights. Rukia moves the mouse across the screen to an option for “Do Not Disturb”, and the messages go dead quiet.

Lips twisting and brows furrowing, Rukia snaps the laptop shut and places it on the writing desk next to the bed. The bed creaks under her with every slight movement she makes, whining when Rukia stretches her body out across the mattress and wondering if she ought to put any decoration up on the barren walls. Would that be rude? She is going to be here for a year, presumably.

Well, until then, she still has lots of crap to unpack and begin her occupation as a burden on these innocent people’s lives. Rukia rolls over onto her side, reaching out an arm to the handle of her suitcase and pulling it closer, when a bare glimpse of movement in the corner catches her eye.

There, in the open doorway, are two big, blue eyes staring like those of an easily alarmed cat. The eyes are accompanied by a round, flushed face, and small little fingers curled around the edge of the threshold, a girl hanging on tightly as if to steel herself.

Rukia and the girl watch each other warily for a second, the child peering through long, droopy black bangs. Rukia imagines this is what it must feel like to be an animal on exhibit at the zoo, finally deciding to try for a friendly smile. “Hey-”

She raises her hand in greeting, but as quickly as she had appeared the girl flings herself away from the door with a high-pitched squeak. Rukia hears a frantic tapping of feet skittering down the stairs, and then what sounds like a young boy yelling indistinguishably. Rukia just stares at the empty spot, suddenly remembering that she feels very tired indeed.

Allowing herself to sigh, Rukia forces her body to stand. She flattens down her hair and her skirt before moving towards the door, the stairs, the chatter and the smell of hot green tea from the floor below. It is time, once again, for her to put on her performance.

 

The ‘Boss’ as Tessai had titled him, was a middle-aged man with blond hair that appeared to have the same color and texture as straw, a patch of stubble on his chin, and a strong preference for the color green. As Rukia passes through the green curtain to the back room, she sees him talking animatedly to Byakuya, and has to marvel at how perfectly someone’s aesthetic could be so opposite to her brother’s.

Whatever the boss-guy was talking about, his mouth quickly seals up the moment Rukia appears. Which, frankly, was not too reassuring. But was better than Byakuya, who didn’t seem to have register her at all yet. “-That she can just fly off to God-knows-where with no warning!”

The sound of Byakuya’s deep and angry voice was unsettling. Rukia had the impulse to tip-toe backwards and slink back upstairs, but the blond man suddenly has his attention fixed squarely on her and a lilting voice that beckoned for attention. “And this must be the young Miss Kuchiki, I presume! Such a delight to finally be in your company. Please- come sit! Tessai will have the tea in just a second.”

The back room appears to be where the building transformed from store into proper living space, and it looks just as old-fashioned as anything else about the building. Under Rukia’s sock-clad feet, the texture of the tatami mat is weird and foreign. Rukia folds herself in front of the low table in the center of the floor.

“Yes, thank you. I was just putting my things away…” And perhaps getting spied on, but that would be a topic to address later. What’s a little espionage between housemates? Rukia feels she should make some statement about how cozy the man’s home is, or how thrilled she is to be here, but she just doesn’t have it in her to lie to a man’s face like that today.

Her dour attitude sails majestically right over the blond man’s head, as expected of anyone who could have Byakuya Kuchiki yell at them and still have it together. From the sleeve of his green robe, the man wields a paper fan he uses to bat the air comfortably. “You may call me Urahara-san. I am the handsome proprietor of this humble abode. And your host for the time being, so I hope we become good friends.”

She likes that Urahara said ‘host’ and not ‘guardian’. She’s too old for a babysitter, never mind her brother abandoning her on the doorstep of a stranger.

“Hello. Thank you very much for having me here. I really appreciate it.” Rukia bows where she sits, demure as you please. “I believe you are… an acquaintance of Shihoin-sama and my brother?”

She can feel Byakuya’s eyes on her as she speaks properly. He had said that she ought to make a good first impression, but it feels more to Rukia like she’s trying to leave a good last impression on him.

Urahara laughs. Rukia has no way of gauging how sincere it is- somehow she doubts that he is faking his behavior, but he doesn’t sound awfully honest, either. “Oh, yes. I’ve been familiar with Kuchiki-sama for quite some time. But Yoruichi and I go way back. Tessai, here, as well! Ah, speak of the very devil himself!”

As Urahara introduces him, sure enough Tessai appears from a hallway with a tea tray. Before he’s even set it down on the center of the table, however, Byakuya stands up and smooths the creases out of his pants. “I’m afraid I shall have to go now, there is still much I have to attend to today.”

“Oh, well if you’re quite sure…” Urahara seems to babble, completely unaffected, as Tessai pours him a cup of steaming tea. Rukia stands up as well, feeling at least a little resentful that Byakuya can’t even pretend to be sad he’s leaving her.

But Byakuya shakes his head and puts his hand on Rukia’s shoulder. He’s not a very large man, but of course with Rukia’s stature it’s hard for him not to loom over her. “Don’t trouble yourself, I can see myself out just fine.”

Rukia doesn’t know what she expects. A hug or something? A firm handshake. Byakuya lightly pats her shoulder. “I will be in touch soon.” And then strides out to the other side of the curtain.

“Such a very mature farewell.” Urahara comments from behind the edge of his fan, and Rukia feels enough moxie rise within her to shoot him a warning glare that actually does seem to shame him sufficiently.

Urahara coughs and exchanges the fan for the hot cup of tea, Tessai settling down at his side of the table. “So! You’ve seen your new room. I’m sure to you it’s a bit drab, it used to be Yoruichi’s office so the decoration is sparse.”

“No, really. Everything is great. It’s just-” Even if Rukia tried to get a read on Urahara, she doubts it would be useful. Without Byakuya around to be abrasive and proper, there’s no longer anything here to uncomfortably break the ice. Rukia can’t tell at all what either of these men are thinking. “Are there, perhaps, other people staying in this house?”

“Oh, you must have seen the kids! Yes, they don’t enjoy strangers very much.” Urahara says cryptically. He stands up with an effortful grunt while Tessai artfully fills two out of the three remaining cups. “Ururu, Jinta! C’mere, scamps!”

The amount of time it takes for ‘the kids’ to reveal themselves makes Rukia suspect that they were never very far in the first place. Guiltily from under the curtain, Rukia sees the same gloomy face she saw in the doorway of her bedroom. The dark-haired girl pulls it aside to reveal herself, as well as a red-haired boy. From the brief glimpse before, Rukia thought the girl might be 12, but now with her companion and no longer skittering in the shadows Rukia is leaning more to 13 or even 14.

The girl, Ururu, looks at her feet shyly. Her pigtails hang over her shoulders in a way that makes Rukia think of drooping puppy dog ears. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, miss…”

The boy, who’s bright red hair and deep scowl give Rukia a powerful sense of nostalgia she can’t place, folds his arms over his chest. To the corner of the room, he mutters, “Don’t say sorry, stupid. It’s our freakin’ house.”

Rukia looks down at her teacup and smartly pretends she didn’t hear that last comment, a sentiment that is shared by everyone else in the room. Urahara summons a cardboard box from under the table and shakes it invitingly in Tessai and Rukia’s directions. “Anyone for Bridge?”


	2. The Fool (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Settling into her new life in the big city, Rukia makes a coincidental connection with an old friend! As long as she has people to rely on, m͠ay̢be̵ t̯̬͘h̝͍̭̫i̦͔s̺̗̪͇̤̘̣ ̥̱͉͎̜͍͈ye̜̦̣̫̦͞a͖̩͟r͟ ̳͎̘̝̬͈͕w̢͍̬ͅͅon͈̜͟'̨t̙̮̯̬͈̭̪ ̼̭̬͈͜b͕̰̭͚͎e ̘͎̗̫̕s̙̟̠̰̼͝ǫ ̪̣̠̻̬̲͞b̬̙͟a̴d̬̲͎̩̠ͅ a̴̞̥̺̪̩̥̣f͉̮̯̜͖̖t̼͓͈̳͎̜̕e͏̶͔r̘̥͟͞ ̷̶̶͈͖̙͍a͔̗̹l̷̘͙̪̝͎͓l̸̘̺͓̩̬̹
> 
>  
> 
> **There is chaos in this world, as well as order.  
> **  
>  **If you fail to see the difference, you fail to identify the patterns.**

Rukia wakes up to nature’s sweet morning call of oppressive humidity and dire August heat. When she pulls herself away from her borrowed white bed sheets, she swears there’s an outline of herself drawn in sweat like some kind of terrible perspiration crime scene. Gross. For Urahara’s shop of ‘delightful treats’ she should think that one of those delights should be air conditioning.

There are six more days until the fall semester begins. Rukia already has her classes scheduled far in advance, but that’s about all she has. She knows about as much about Gotei’s campus as she does any place that isn’t Karakura town- that is, to say, depressingly little. She figures at the very least she should walk on up there and try to figure out where the basic amenities are for busy, state-funding students like herself. Maybe Rukia will even check out the fall welcoming social events for clubs and activities, look for places to make new friends-

She thinks to herself sarcastically, as if she’s ever brought herself to go to such an event before.

But anyways. Academics.

 

The school campus is a healthy walk plus a short train ride from the Shoten, and Rukia appreciates the opportunity to stretch her legs. At any rate, the neighborhood doesn’t look quite so dreary in the light of day. The street that the shop is on is still tight and packed close in like the walls of a cage, but that narrow alley soon opens up to commercial streets and actually respectable little places of business.

There’s a little bit of everything for the young, hip metropolitan on a budget here. A ramen shop, a tea house, a movie theater, even a little boutique for pastries and chocolates. Jeeze, no wonder Urahara’s place has no business. Rukia finds herself idling by the posters for featured flicks under the theater’s neon sign. If she catches a movie on the weekend, it’ll kill a few hours and she can pretend she has some sort of social life.

She takes a few moments to fondly regard a poster for a horror movie about ghosts or something. There’s not much to glean about the plot from the portrait of a young woman dressed in white robe sitting in a dark room, gazing out a small window to the sky, but Rukia is game for a little bit of psychological thrill. What’s the worst that could happen? She gets all twitchy and paranoid and reclusive? She’s like that anyways.

From the other side of the theater doors, there’s the mischievous and foreboding cackle of youths. Sneakers thump against thick carpet as several teenagers come rushing out from the lobby doors, all grins and and sprinkled with popcorn debris. Rukia quickly sidesteps to avoid getting slurpie spilled on her comfortable walking shoes. “Aw, c’mon, man! Seriously? We weren’t bothering nobody, mister!”

“Don’t care. Either buy a ticket or pack it in, guys.” A gruff voice says from behind them, a bulky shape emerging from the glass doors and waving arms to usher the youths out of the way. “Y’all know the deal, come back when you punks get an allowance from yer parents to burn.”

“Aww, dude!” The kids cackle, beginning to wander across the street to the video arcade, but Rukia feels the gears in her mind start to grind. She knows that rough voice well, and that harsh accent-

And that bright red hair? Hell, Rukia doesn’t know how she could miss it even if she tried. “Renji?”  


 

It’s been about- shit, it must be seven years by now. Almost a decade since she saw Renji, still lean and lanky as his body strained to catch up with the machinations of mother nature reaching inside his skeleton and yanking him up to high heavens until he sprouted like a beanpole. Even at the tender age of 16, Rukia could not imagine Renji could get any more massive than he already was.

She was incredibly wrong. When Renji angles his body around to find her, it’s like watching an eighteen-wheel truck spin on its axle. Rukia sees, before anything else, a splattering of black lines like streaks of charcoal drawn over his brow and neck first, and then the narrow, crinkled glare of his eyes second. “What-”

His eyes soften the moment he sees Rukia, and it’s kind of amazing to watch that tight-lipped snarl transform into something that she recognizes. Renji gawks at Rukia like she just dropped out of the sky.

“Rukia? Jesus, you scared me.” His hair is tied back with a dark red bandana, and on his black t-shirt the script of SECURITY is printed in white bold across his broad chest. Tension seems drawn tight across his face, but then it loosens and Renji’s face opens up into a white smile. “Where the hell’d you come from? It’s been ages! Like, way more than just ages.”

Rukia feels Renji’s relaxation mirrored in herself. She feels un-stuck where she stands once again, talking towards Renji a little slow and skittish like she might scare him off. “You can’t tell? I’m a Shibuya local now. I go to those new ‘moving picture shows’ all the kids are talking about, like all the hip young people in the big city. Was that not obvious?”

God, she’s so horribly not funny. But Renji actually sniggers as he folds his arms over his chest. He’s so fucking large. It’s not fair at all that Rukia reached her last growth spurt at the wise old age of 13.

“Really, you live here now? The largest population in the city’re the fleas, and the second largest are the rats they live on.” Renji’s short sleeves inch up over his biceps, revealing the edge of let more tattoos that snake up his arms. “What’s a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?”

The way he says that- it rings hollow somehow. It’s not like Rukia and Renji are so different even now. Like they didn’t eat together once, live together, play together. Wrapped each other up in second-hand coats, Rukia tying up Renji’s bootlaces until he perfected the loopy bit on his own. She could have been here the whole time, if things had been different.

But they weren’t. Rukia jabs her thumb towards the road behind her, then realizes that gesture is meaningless until you were to know she was headed towards the train station. “Gotei University.”

Renji’s brows rise, which looks especially odd with the strange tattoos. “Oh, wow. What’cha majoring?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.” Rukia chuckles darkly at the sidewalk, running her hand up the back of her choppy hair. “Uh, undecided. Maybe I’ll just get so good at school that I can do it forever.”

“Ugh. You would, Miss Smarty-pants.” Renji snarks. As if Rukia doesn’t distinctly remembering Renji electric with pride when he was accepted into honors classes freshman year of high school. She wonders if he kept pursuing honors classes in spite of his loathing for the education machinations in general.

“So, uh…” The sharp smile on Renji’s face flickers a little. “Did your, uh, brother move int’ town with you?”

With the suspicious tone of Renji’s voice hitting her, Rukia suddenly recalls that she was abandoned on a stranger’s door by her legal guardian after being expelled in disgrace from both her college and her own house.

This is what celebrated Kuchikis who are not like Rukia would call a ‘fall from grace’, and an amenable reason to fudge the full details of her life story. See, Byakuya? She learned something!

“No, he’s not here.” Rukia makes herself smile bravely, like she’s happy about that. Which, she supposes she is? Compared to the available alternatives. She’s unsure. “It’s just me in the big city now.”

Maybe she’s more transparent than she feels, because Renji doesn’t look wholly satisfied with this answer. “Huh.” He says, mysteriously.

Rukia is about to come up with some other way to justify her existence here on this very day, but thankfully she is rescued by an upsetting digital tone ring coming from clunky black box strapped to Renji’s hip. Automatically, he pulls the walkie-talkie to his mouth like it’s ingrained in his very being. “Front lobby.”

A tinny, far away voice burbles through the static back, “ _Front lobby, I need back up reporting to the East wing men’s room._ ”

Renji looks at the walkie imploringly and shares an irritated look with Rukia as his audience, who tries in turn to look very sympathetic. “This is the security channel, my guy. Custodial is channel 2.”

“ _Didn’t ask what channel it was, did I? Just get your butt to the East wing, Abarai._ ”

Rukia has never seen someone become so tired so quickly. Renji prickles with annoyance as he slots his walkie into place, chuffing loudly. “Duty calls.”

“That sounds…” What the fuck could be happening in the East wing men’s room?! “Yikes.”

“Seriously.” Renji agrees. His eyes flicker from the sidewalk, to the theater doors, to Rukia, then the sidewalk again. “Listen, I work pretty late tonight, but I take shifts like a lunatic around here and everybody owes me a few nights off. Let me know when you’re free, we could get some drinks together sometime or somethin’.”

 

Part of Rukia does want to automatically turn him down. She’s known Renji for years, but rationale dictates that this Renji is a complete stranger compared to her teenaged best friend. They don’t necessarily stand where they did before, and there’s probably some worldly wisdom about mixing alcohol and shady characters you just met.

But at the same time… it’s Renji. A familiar face all the way out here. And if she doesn’t try to reconnect now, she probably never will.

 

“Yeah.” Rukia hears herself say without much commitment, so she clears her throat and repeats herself with more dignity. “Yeah, that sounds good. You pick the place, though. I don’t know anything good around here.” Like she ever got to go to bars while living under Byakuya’s neurotic eye.

Renji’s face breaks into a full, toothy grin and he gives her a finger gun. “I gotcha covered! Don’t even worry about it.” The gesture is such a goofy departure from how big and tough he was looking before, Rukia can’t help but feel a bark of laughter rise from her throat. “Make sure to let me know when, okay? Don’t you dare leave me hanging.”

“I won’t.” Rukia smiles as she watches Renji disappear into the building to handle whatever disaster they have going on in there.

She turns to continue down the way she came, passing one last glance at the movie poster she was observing earlier. ‘ _What Lurks Beneath_ ’, huh? Looks pretty dumb. She’ll have to check it out sometime.  


 

As any self-aware student of higher education can tell you, college is a fake and made up thing created by the government or aliens in order to collect huge piles of money, where it will all presumably be fed to the eldritch creature living in the hellmouth under the dean’s office that grades all the scantrons.

The public university of Gotei isn’t too different from the private college she went to before, at least structurally. Gotei isn’t quite as trimmed and polished for one thing, and secondly it’s much, much bigger. By the time Rukia has run from one side of campus to the other and found all the halls where her classes will be, she feels sufficiently exhausted. It looks like she’s gonna be busy in the future to say the very least.

Fall semester hasn’t started, yet it’s long after summer classes have ended, so the entire campus is an eerily empty ghost town. Rukia keeps wandering around, seeing the echoes of the summer farewells to last spring’s graduates still pinned to the walls and the windows. The informal flyers advertise summer activities and year-round career counseling. Desperate satellites screaming out to be heard by someone, anyone.

At least the library is nice and air-conditioned. It’s not as lonely either, with the occasional glimpse of a librarian skulking around the stacks. Rukia even likes that old musty book-smell. She sits down at a desk parked between two cloistered shelves of books, pretending that she’s about to get to work and can focus in her little bubble here.

Rukia flattens her palms across the surface of the desk and frowns. She hopes Renji didn’t perceive her quietness as reluctance, or even disgust. If her memory is at all accurate, she was once more comfortable with Renji than any other person in the world.

 

It was not terrible to live at the orphanage, from what Rukia remembers. Probably because for a while it was the only thing she had ever known, and Rukia had no friends from the outside to compare experiences with.

What did become draining was the perpetual sense of being _stuck_ . Children of every age, size and personality collected under a roof that would never be big enough to hold them comfortably, waiting for _something_ to break the monotony of the purgatory they were trapped in.

The fact that Rukia apparently had a long-lost sister came as more a slap in the face to Rukia than a miraculous boon. She remembers being fourteen and receiving the news, and mentally writing the interview that would ensue. _‘Hey, Sis! Long time, no see, amIright? Hahahaha. Where have you… like... Been, exactly? Also who are you? Call me back- Love, some girl you’ve never met before.’_

 

But Rukia never got to write that message. Never even got to meet Hisana. And it was less than a year later that Hisana’s widower appeared in her dormitory and told her to collect her things, the adoption papers were already signed. All Rukia had to do was go along with it, and suddenly she would be in her own Cinderella story, trading rags for fabulous riches! No more second-hand, ripped-up jeans or flavorless mess hall dinners for her!

A real princess transformation.

 

After her adoption, she just completely lost touch with Renji- no one at the orphanage had a personal computer or phone in those days. And asking Byakuya if she could go back to the orphanage seemed somehow impertinent. Years did go by and it should have only become easier and easier for Rukia to just swallow her dumbshit pride and dig Renji up, but instead it just got harder.

Would Renji think differently of her, now that she was living on a Kuchiki-sized budget, wearing and eating Kuchiki money like it was no big deal? Would he and her other friends think she was rubbing their faces in her miracle by even showing up? Surely everyone has wished at some point for a missing rich dead relative or two.

And yeah, maybe Rukia just always kind of hoped Renji would take the prerogative instead. That was really more his style, to stick it out and do all of the hard shit that Rukia didn’t have the spine to do. And the longer he didn’t, the more Rukia had to wonder why. Maybe he really did hate her now.

Maybe she really should forget all about her past.

 

And yet… it wasn’t Hisana who buttoned up Rukia’s coat for her when the zipper got stuck, or got detention for punching a boy who called her a bitch in middle school. It wasn’t Byakuya who let Rukia borrow his gameboy, or saved up his allowance to buy his own ticket so he could go with Rukia to see a movie that he hated.

That was always Renji. Or at least the Renji of seven years ago. Alongside the Rukia of seven years ago.

So where does that leave her now?  
  


The train back from campus is packed with people going home from work, Rukia has never seen so many people sharing such close quarters without even a murmur of complaint. Rukia squeezes herself between a man in a business suit checking his phone and an older woman holding a bag of groceries, figuring she might as well get used to life in the big city. The large metropolis. The grand municipality.

The train’s LED screen cycles through the same news bulletins and advertisements. There’s a book coming out documenting the activity of an alleged serial killer who stalks the Shinjuku alleys at night. Los Noches Tech is hyping up the newest model of their expensive phones that will render all other forms of digital communication obsolete in a matter of months. A famous social activist had a mental breakdown and shredded all the funds from his non-for-profit. A CEO billionaire has his picture taken shaking hands with the mayor like a hero.

It’s a scary world out there. “This whole country is going to hell.” Someone mutters in someone else’s ear. The sentiment seems to seep through the entire train car.

Rukia rips her eyes away from the screen. If she’s going to be depressed and cynical, she may as well wait until she can do it in the privacy of her own room. She does what anyone under the age of 60 does when they need a distraction and summons her phone from her pocket.

A text from Byakuya pops up as the screen floods with light. When did she even get this? It’s timestamped hours ago, Rukia has to assume she didn’t even notice.  


**Brother** :

I would like you to schedule a meeting with your school-appointed academic advisor. He will inform you what you need to do to declare your major.’

 

Who texts full sentences in this day and age? Grammar and lexicals? In this economy?

Rukia dismisses the messages. She’s already late in responding, he won’t care if she’s a little more late.

 

The train slows to a halt, Rukia’s eyes leap from the screen to the train map against the wall. The next stop should be her’s. That sure is an intimidating mishmash of lines on that map, though. It seems like you could get anywhere in Tokyo, though Rukia has little need to go to crowded tourist traps like Akihabara or Harajuku.

As the train begins the unsteady lurch of propelling itself back into motion. Rukia feels her phone buzz in her hand. Another follow up from Byakuya? Ah, shows her for thinking she could blow him off that easily.

Rukia looks back down at the device in her palm, expecting to see Byakuya’s proper syntax all over the screen. It looks like instead there’s some sort of system update.

 

Rukia’s phone is standard Los Noches Tech. The 5th generation of its model, as well as the most popular. Every few weeks it updates its own software, notifications popping up in a soothing light purple to inform her what systems are being modified for her consumer convenience.

This update comes up in a dark, dark red box. It’s black text scrawls like someone on the inside is trying to scratch their way out.

  


Y O U R  H E A R T  I S  R E A D Y  T O  U P D A T E

 

A C C E P T  /  D E C L I N E ?

  


Rukia furrows her brows, her lips purse.

Accept… what, exactly?

Is this a virus? Why would any programmer develop malware that looked so obviously creepy and sketchy? Still, Rukia supposes that if it’s intention was to unsettle someone, it isn’t a half bad attempt.

Rukia’s thumb taps ‘D E C L I N E’ and the box disappears. Rukia’s frown deepens.

 

Weird.

  
  


Tessai serves katsudon for dinner. As Rukia sits down at the low table, looking across from Urahara and sandwiched in between Ururu and Jinta, she begins to gather that Tessai is actually the one keeping this establishment/family afloat.

Though she really could have guessed that the first day she arrived.

“I talked to Yoruichi for a bit today on the phone.” Urahara explains as Tessai takes his own position at the table. You know what, Rukia isn’t sure she’s even seen Urahara in the kitchen. Like. At all. “She said she really is sorry she couldn’t be here to greet you. It really is such bad luck she had to leave so quickly, after she promised to look after you and all that.”

Having a day to settle her nerves, Rukia is starting to feel bolder. At least enough to hold her end of a conversation. “It’s really not a bother to me, Urahara-san. I don’t need to be watched 24/7 or anything. If anything, I owe all of you.”

Jinta, on her left side, puffs out his chest authoritatively “Yer damn right about that! If you wanna stay here, you gotta earn your keep-” before Tessai barks, “Jinta! Rethink your behavior!” Rukia quietly and quickly drinks her tea as if she hadn’t heard anything, while Ururu mutters something under her breath too quietly for the human ear to discern. Kids. Why did it half to be kids?

“Nonsense, Miss Kuchiki-san. I assure you, we’re pleased to have you.” Also ignoring Jinta’s outburst, Urahara folds his hands together and leans his elbows on the table. It’s not a very large room, Rukia is unsure how the blond man is able to make it seem like he’s concentrating all the energy in the space on her. “Young people these days have so much pressure put on them, don’t you think? Even to the point that asking others for help seems inappropriate.”

As Urahara leans in, Rukia finds herself involuntarily leaning back. She’s still not fully comfortable with Urahara’s.... Everything, yet. “Yes, I suppose that’s a good point.”

“But human beings are social creatures, you know. It’s natural for everybody to need help from time to time.” Rukia finds it difficult to focus on Urahara’s face. Aside from his fondness for headware, it’s also that he just appears to be such a plain-looking man. He has the kind of visage Rukia feels like she’s seen a hundred times before, it’s only once in awhile when she focuses that she makes out watery, dark brown eyes under his pale, shaggy hair. “You shouldn’t be afraid to use every advantage available to you, Miss Kuchiki-san. You may even need to ask Tessai or myself for help at some point.”

Well thanks, Mister, for explaining everything so neatly. Rukia thinks about what the appropriate response to give here would be if she were, say, a normal person and not one prone to being unnaturally suspicious and distrusting. Is this how normal families converse about things? Maybe she’s the odd one.

She tentatively lands on what she thinks will be acceptable, “Thank you, Urahara-san. I’ll keep that in mind.”  
  


Well, more than 24 hours have passed since she moved in. Which means, of course, she’s all social interaction-ed out and it is finally time to retreat to the sanctity of the internet.

Spread on her stomach on the bed, Rukia disdainfully scrolls through her missed Butterfly messages. Nothing she wants to respond to. Not yet anyways, while she’s still thinking things over.

The only thing she actually takes the time to read is an email from Kaien, who is so far removed from the situation Rukia actually feels safe talking to him. While he’s out there in the Philippines, studying sharks or seaweed or whatever in particular he’s working on right now, he and Miyako are blissfully unaware of Rukia’s recent shame.

Reading his enthusiastically detailed notes about his research, his adventures and pictures of the beautiful beach and all of the fascinating people he’s met, Rukia wishes Kaien could be here with her and tell her what to do.

Except. Not really. Because if Kaien _were_ here, then he’d probably know how badly Rukia fucked everything up, and how weak she is for letting herself get bossed around and abandoned and all.

At least he’s having fun.

Rukia buries her face into her pillow until the usual wave of ennui momentarily passes, then continues her business.

 

Heavy rain and flash floods coming this week according to the weather forecast. So much for the rain going away. Everybody’s real angry on the internet about this new app or whatever that sells information about your search history to businesses like Amazon and Google. Ah, Capitalism, you scampy old so-and-so. Though the word ‘app’ manages to jar Rukia’s memory.

Right. Her phone. Rukia glances towards where it rests on the floor, connected to the charger and sitting benignly. Chappy keychain aside, there’s nothing unusual about it.

Rukia, who has no experience with malware, programming, conspiracies or anything of the like, does what the average human being would do and pulls up the Google search bar.

‘ _LNT gen 5 virus_ ’

Lots of results. Absolutely none of them comprehensible.

‘ _LNT red message box_ ’

‘ _Fake update red message box black text_ ’

‘ _Your heart is ready to update_ ’

A fruitless effort from seeds that were already pretty shriveled and dead to begin with. Could it be that Rukia imagined the whole thing? Sure, she’s already nervous and irritable all the time. Why not add hallucinations onto the pile?

She knows, though, that she definitely didn’t make this up. If something is fucky, it’s not just Rukia’s brain.

Cupping her face in her hands, Rukia gives her phone one last distrustful glare before tearing her eyes away. Aren’t old people always saying young folks spend too much time thinking about their phones?


	3. The Fool (III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Rukia decides to reconnect with Renji, and maybe even spend some time with his other friends. Renji sure knows a lot of interesting people! Will R̵uk͠ia m̨̳̻̭͖̻̯͕̺͜a̡͖̠̳͝k̸̡̪̭̰̝̪̭̩̭͕͜e̢̠̱̣͓̹̝ͅ ̧̩̠̗ͅa̧̹̬̫̻ ̷̨̙̖͡s̢̱p̘̯͍ȩ̤̭̮͢ç̡͎̮̥͍͍̣͞i̛͕̣͕͍ą̶͇͔̩̮̯̗͚̱ļ̜̯̙̯͕̠͠ c̼̹̻̭͉͉̺̰̮͙͇̪̬̥̝̟̯̫̙͠͠o҉̱̼͉̦̳n̢̻͙͎̯̯̙̣̱̱͇̠̦̳̘̹̟͖̖͜͞͠n҉̨̧̳̘̥̼͎̫͙̠͡e̖͙͔͖̘͘c̷͉̺̯͞͝t̨͏͏҉̪̜͈̹̯̟̦̙͎̹͓̖̗̖̺̟i̢̢̱̙̯̖̭͖̻̗̪̙̮̯̠̦̺̗̥̻͉͟͢͠o̡̢̼̫̹̜̩̮̮̟̝̩̬͎̼̗ͅņ̨͚̮̲̦̜̮̳̝̦̳͝ ̴̡͚͎̟̹̞̲̣̥̤͜͝w̡͚̰̺͓̙͔̣̞͢͡͡ͅi҉̳̲͎͈̩̦͕̻͎̞͎̮̳̬̖ţ̶͇̞̟̮̳͙̹̦͙̣̟̜̥̩̯̝͠h̩̼̪̠̕ ̢̤̙̭̰̜̰͚̦̳̫̪͓̜ǫ̵͕̫͔̼͔͍͙͚͉͕͈͡ͅņ̵͏̫̠̠͔̱̻̭ę̡̞̳̝̹̤̲͙̬̻̤̪̯̖̜̝̞̦͢ ̷͞͞҉̪̣̖̺̪͎͟o̥̜̪͈̥̣̥̰̤̰̯͔͜͟ͅf̲̙̲̩̲̙̩͢ ̸̸͕̬̻͙͍̠̗͎̝̺̬̦͝t̸̸̛͍͖̣͙͜h̡͏̫̫̠̝̲̜̜̹e҉̧̭͖͇͕̦̟͚̗̤̪̟̳̻̩̞̪̟̙m̵̧̼͔̞̙?͚̣̰͎͓͙͕̘͍̰̣̟͠
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **It takes two people to make a lie.**  
>  **A liar to tell it,**  
>  **And a fool to believe it.**

After tossing the idea around for just long enough to aggravate even herself, Rukia decides she oughta drop Renji a line after all. She needs friends. Being a reclusive hermit isn’t fun anymore. And now that she has the opportunity to throw away this cinderblock-sized weight of guilt for not getting in touch with Renji sooner, she oughta just get that over with, too.

Once again it’s time to put her Millennial detective skills to work. And sure enough, Renji’s facebook has only been a few clicks away this entire time.  

Rukia scrolls his page for a while, sitting at the desk in her room and studying Renji’s social life with the intensity of an archeologist trying to unlock the secrets of the fucking Rosetta Stone. There are tons of pictures of him and his friends. When they were kids Renji was so unapproachable to others that he made Rukia look downright charming, but there was always something about unique about him that drew in other misfits. Something that Rukia felt that she lacked, and it was just another way that they balanced each other out.

His page has a link to his Butterfly account. Rukia plugs in his account number and his icon comes up a bright red Monarch to starkly contrast her own Blue Morpho. Rukia cracks her fingers and gets ready to work some magic.

 

**Hey Renji, it’s Rukia.**

 

So far, so good.

 

**I got your butterfly from your fb page. [Hope that’s not weird or anything.]**

 

Actually you know what? She deletes that last sentence. Brevity is the wit of the soul.

 

**Wanted to know if you still felt like hanging out sometime. I’d like to catch up with you.**

**I have transfer orientation thurs but I’m free in the evening. Also fri if that works better for you.**

 

**[Also sat. and sun. Pretty much forever. I have no friends, Renji. To have friends you have to go and meet people, but you have to do it in like just the appropriate way. Like you talk about your classes and your job and such, but all you really end up saying is how tired you are because you work so hard, and the other person says how tired they are from working so hard. But then you kind of wonder if the other person says they’re tired you should leave them alone, even though you JUST said the same thing. But you only really said that because your life is boring and you have nothing to talk about except school and work and the weather, and you were secretly hoping the other person would have something more interesting to say and you’d have a meaningful conversation. But you don’t, Renji. You just don’t. I should just stop telling people I’m tired all the time.]**

 

(It should go without saying- all of that gets deleted too.)

 

**Message me back when you get the chance.**

 

Welp. Balls in Renji’s court now. The next step is for Rukia to just go about her business and attend the stupid orientation for stupid college, emptying out her bookbag to make room for the countless and useless flyers she will be given and never look at again. She is about to snap her laptop shut and pack that in as well on the grounds that she can slip away before the tour and just check out her class syllabi online when Renji’s Butterfly flashes eagerly.

 

**You like coffee? Mischief's Brewing @ 3rd strt this evening.**

**Same street where i work just go a few blocks down.**

**Im meeting some friends there but it’s cool they aren’t annoying or anything.**

 

Yes, well. It looks like she finally has something to look forward to.

 

Orientation for Gotei places Rukia in a big, stuffy auditorium in a plastic desk that’s too small even for Rukia’s famously diminutive size. It’s pure misfortune of the situation that puts Rukia in one of the furthest back rows, trying to curve her eyes around a tall person’s head and see down, down, all the way down to the podium where a university employee who’s far too young and bright-eyed to be a professor launches into a robotic spiel about the various undergraduate programs that dumb assholes like themselves- beg your pardon, _undeclared undergraduates-_ can discover and pursue their true passions.

Rukia doesn’t know if she’s ever felt genuine passion about anything in her life, perhaps aside from her passion for drawing _The Wondrous Animated Adventures of Chappie & Friends! _Fanart in middle school.

Man, there sure used to be a point where Rukia had a lot of free time.

Rukia clicks her pen absently, not really bothered that she can’t clearly hear what the announcer is saying. Something about the tutoring facilities on campus? Oh jeeze, that actually sounds useful.

“-You can check what classes have tutoring available on the school’s tutoring center website-” Rukia just wishes the speech-givers voice wasn’t so nasally and dull.

The tall person in the row in front of Rukia’s head bobs, shaking their curly hair and making it yet even more hard for Rukia to focus. “What’s with this speech? So boring…”

“Seriously. I think she said she was, like, a guidance counselor or something? When I checked the orientation info online it said one of the department heads was supposed to be speaking, but she canceled at the last minute.” The person next to them titters. There is something about gossip that really lights up a fire in people, apparently. The two students lean their heads together, voices soft and high like hummingbirds. “Apparently she had one of those mental breakdowns in the news, where people go crazy out of nowhere and start doing weird shit.”

“God, that so creepy.” Curly-hair says. “Every time I hear about those weird breakdowns my skin crawls. If you see me going off the deep end like that just check me into a mental hospital first thing.”

Rumors. Speculation. Events that defy rational explanation.

Rukia chews on the cap of her pen idly and tries to write useful notes. She may not want to tell Byakuya about how exciting life in Tokyo is.

 

Rukia is glad that Renji decided on a coffee house and not a bar. She’s not opposed to drinking, only assumes that she would stick out due to her general… everything. But sipping a chai latte while a bunch of nerds type their unfinished novels or talk about the house favorites for open mic slam poetry night? That she can almost certainly handle. She’ll be the coolest kid there.

Mischief’s is a little place that does indeed seem to attract the nocturnal caffeine crowd. Rukia can see the orange window lights bursting through dense fog and the hazy air of a humid summer evening. It reminds her of lighthouses on the edge of the choppy ocean and other poetic what-have-yous.

Walking in to the smell of rich coffee and pastries, Rukia has a hard time imagining anybody could overlook Renji parked on one of the overstuffed couches with his spiky red hair poking out of his puffy gray hoodie, parked between two golden blondes. They couldn’t look more obvious if they had big neon arrows over their heads.

Rukia walks towards the direction of Renji’s back, and as a result it’s the blonds who notice her first. Following their gaze, Renji cranes around and beams at her. It could be excitement glittering in his grin, or relief, that she showed up. “Hey, Rukia! Grab a seat. Put yer feet up, these two don’t bite.”

She sits down across from Renji, between the other two. Renji gestures at her with flourish. “This is the girl I was telling you about. Matsumoto, Kira- play nice.”

 

The blondes- Matsumoto and Kira. They look like twins from different dimensions. Same light golden hair, same blue eyes, but that’s where the similarities hit the wall.

The woman, Matsumoto, is full figured and elegant-looking lady, her make-up done in dark colors and a shimmering pink scarf draped around her shoulders. As she gives Rukia a rosy-cheeked smile, Rukia’s brain rubs at least two of its spare neurons together to remember it’s not considered polite to stare at impossibly gorgeous women.

Kira, Matsumoto’s polar opposite, is a slim man all wrapped up in a navy button-up. His big eyes look awfully watery, like he’d just been recovering from a cold, and he regards her from under big, shaggy bangs. “Hello.”

“Kuchiki Rukia,” Rukia says instantly before realizing that no one had asked her name. Whoops. Well, Renji did say that he had told them about her, hopefully that also included some good things. “Nice to meet you.” Yes. Adult introductions are a thing people do.

The shop smells ripe with tea, soothing jasmine and oolong. Rangiku giggles musically, tossing back her long, wavy hair over her shoulder before giving Renji a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Abarai, you should’ve said your friend was pretty! How was I supposed to know a cute girl like this would hang out with the likes of you?”

Oh, Jesus. That’s her, isn’t it? Rukia feels herself heat up, the familiar fluttering of gay feelings rumbling around in her chest. But Renji just rolls his eyes, giving Rangiku a heavy look of annoyance. “Man, it’s almost like I didn’t tell you anything because you weren’t invited! I was gonna ask Kira and Hisagi to come over and we’d have a high school reunion. Except way better than a reunion, because only people worth seeing are allowed.”

Class reunion, eh? Actually, Kira is an awfully familiar name, once Rukia reels her memory back far enough to recall the one year she and Renji were actually at the same high school. Renji sure didn’t get more popular his second year, but there was at least one kid who started to follow him around like a lost puppy before Rukia got yanked away.

“Izuru Kira…” The name ghosts over Rukia’s lips, and Izuru averts his eyes modestly with a gentle smile. Rukia had always found it amusing that a surly sixteen-year-old Renji somehow managed to befriend the lanky little sunshine ball of Izuru, even if she had to work twice as hard to let the new kid know exactly who was top dog in the federal Renji’s Best Friend Department. “You were in Renji’s class.”

The Izuru of today looks far more subdued than his counterpart of the past. Rukia’s not sure how to describe it… he’s delicate-looking, she supposes, with his long, narrow jaw and his slender limbs folded in on himself clutching a mug of hot tea. “I honestly wasn’t sure you’d remember me, Kuchiki-san. I guess we never knew each other for very long, but I’m glad to see you look well.”

“Hisagi used to go to our high school, too.” Renji says, sipping a mug of some dark ichor that has the consistency of what is presumably motor oil. “He was a senior when Kira n’ me were freshmen, so you probably wouldn’t’ve run into him.”

“I talked into him earlier today. He said that he was tired from work and needed some time to decompress at home.” Izuru says smartly, and his soft expression hardens into a bothered frown. “I hope he’s doing okay. Hisagi’s a pretty reliable person, but he’s also a total disaster of a human being.”

“That… sounds like the opposite of a reliable person.” Rukia points out, and the table nods in absolutely confounding agreement.

Rangiku’s wrist dips into the black, shiny purse at her side and retrieves a rose-gold phone that her eyes flick to with consideration. “Well, if he’s not gonna come out with us like a big ol’ loser, that’s his problem. More Rukia-chan to go around for the rest of us.”

Rukia must be beat-red, dragging her eyes away from Matsumoto’s fluttering baby blues. Once again, she is her own lesbian downfall. “Oh, well. T-That’s very sweet-” She puts her hand to her own chest like a goobery damsel in a gross historical film.

“Oh, honey. Look at you, you don’t even have a drink yet? Do you like tea? No, don’t get up!” Matsumoto pops up to her feet, snapping her purse up and beginning to jaunt towards the front counter. “Stay right there. The peppermint tea here is he best! I’ll get you a cup, be back in a tick.”

“Oh, Matsumoto-san, you really don’t need to- and you’re going. Alright.” Rukia watches, helplessly, as she is subjected to the kindness of a sweet, pretty lady. What a nightmare/dream for Rukia to be ensnared in/treated to.. To the other two occupants of the table, she tries to look less flustered than she feels. Yeah, girls buy tea for Rukia all the time. She’s just kind of a big deal like that. What of it? “She sure is… full of energy, huh?”

Dark eyes scanning across Rukia’s face, Renji’s lips are drawn into a wide, thin, shit-eating smirk that deserves to have a few teeth knocked out of it. Izuru also looks embarrassed enough to be polite about the whole thing, but smug enough to make Rukia believe this is not uncharacteristic behavior from his friend. “Yeah, that’s one word for it. Please excuse Matsumoto, she’s been jumpy all day getting ready for her first big fashion show.”

“Fashion show?” Rukia echoes, looking over to Rangiku animatedly talking to the barista. She definitely looks stylish enough to be a professional, Rukia just expected her to be more- well, let her just say it’s not just the clothes or makeup or the prettiness that make Rangiku seem so warm and lively. “Is she a model?”

“Wanted t’ be, I think. Right, Kira?” Renji’s face falls, he turns to Izuru for confirmation. “I mean- Matsumoto’s obviously got the looks. But she had this shithead boss who didn’t like her and kept snubbing her, so she decided to do behind-the-scenes stuff.”

Izuru frowns deeply, eyebrows crinkling. “That’s kind of an oversimplification. But yes, she found modeling to be unrewarding. I think she was also frustrated with the flaws of industry in general, didn’t feel she could do as much on that side of the camera.” He has such a morose expression when the conversation turns dark, Rukia feels bad for making him talk about it. She gets the idea that Izuru and Matsumoto are probably close, and not just in the department of physical features.

“She decided to study design instead and make her own clothes. Eventually a lucky break came around and everyone finally saw how good she really was. Now her designs are gonna be featured for a fundraiser event in Ginza, so it’s a pretty significant turn of luck-”

Matsumoto’s voice rings from over Izuru’s shoulder, making all three jump in alarm. “Oooh! Are you guys talking about me? Only good things, I bet.” The blond woman rolls her eyes dramatically, placing a steaming porcelain cup of tea on the table in front of Rukia. “These two would gossip all day like old crows if you left ‘em alone. Make sure you keep an eye on them both, Rukia, so they don’t run their mouths too much.”

“Hey, now.” Izuru protests, shooting Matsumoto a look of annoyance that doesn’t seem to really have any venom behind it.

Rukia just feels relief as she blows over the surface of the tea. These people aren’t so scary to talk to. They’re friendly and interesting. Much better than staying in her room refreshing the same social media pages. Which she totally doesn’t do all the time. “It never stopped Renji before.” Which earns her a much louder, gruffer “ _Hey_ , now!” from across the table.

Rangiku was spot-on about the peppermint tea. Rukia doesn’t even care that usually she thinks peppermint things taste like toothpaste.

 

Without any particular direction to dictate the conversation, the four of them settle into a comfortable routine of talking about whatever, with only occasional pauses to get more warm drink or to jokingly chastised each other.

Rukia does begin to notice some patterns. Rangiku and Renji seem to do the majority of the talking for the group, speaking very boisterously, very quickly, and very loudly. If they’re at all aware of other people in the coffee shop giving them pointed looks when the volume of their voices start to get intense for polite public discourse, they sure do a great job at pretending not to notice.

Izuru much more prefers to observe rather than engage. Sneaking looks over, Rukia keeps catching him smirking while Rangiku and Renji are talking, as if reminded of a secret joke that only he is in on. When he does talk, Rukia has this strange feeling that he’s not talking to anyone in particular, maybe to himself. It appears a miracle he can even keep up with the other two.

 

“So, yeah. That was mine and Kira’s first and last camping trip.” Renji wraps up the story importantly. “An event that probably never should have happened in the first place. But on the plus side, now we know that we’re both allergic to poison ivy.”

Rukia leans forward on her knees imploring, trying to put together the many details of what she just heard. “Now I’m no botanist-” But Rangiku puts her hand on Rukia’s knee. “Don’t strain yourself, dear.”

Renji sputters at them crossly, Rukia just smiles and puts her teacup down on the table. It’s as her hand retreats from the surface of the table that she becomes aware of something, the presence of another fast approaching their congregation.

The shadow of a tall figure passes over Rukia, chilling in its abruptness. The looming figure of a slender man in a white overcoat passes startlingly close, and in one motion his hip collides with the table and there’s a cacophony of crushed porcelain as teacups shatter against the floor.

Rukia, who’s never had the the luxury for shock anyways, immediately moves to crouch down on her haunches and pick up the larger pieces of tea cup. There’s a huge mess of tea and coffee and shards everywhere, it will help no one by adding blood to the mess.

It’s Renji, of course, who leaps to his feet, hackles raised like a hissing cat at the back of the man in white. “What’s your damage, asshole?” His voice is high and tight with anger, the inside of the shop is dead silent with every stranger’s eye concentrated on this storm. “At least apologize.”

The man angles towards them just slightly, and around the high collar of his coat Rukia can see long hair the color of spring roses. His mouth curls in a weasley smirk under rectangle glasses, this man looks so insufferable and frail that even Rukia thinks she could muster all the power in her 4’9 body to break him in half over her knee like a dry twig.

“Oh dear, I must not have noticed you.” Even his voice is obnoxious and haughty, like an evil nerd. As Rukia hears him talk, her brain just repeats ‘ _asshole, asshole, asshole’_ like a rotating neon sign. “Not to worry, thankfully you didn’t stain my outerwear.” Indeed, the man’s overcoat is still spotlessly white.

“Thankfully.” Izuru echoes darkly, retrieving a wad of napkins to sop up some of the mess. The barista quickly races from behind the counter to anxiously join them, wielding a broom to sweep up the shards of cup that Rukia missed.

Rangiku also rises to stand, putting her palm against the small of Renji’s back gently. “Renji, let’s just calm down.” But Renji, however, looks as stiff as stone, all of the anger drained out of his body.

Sitting on her haunches and looking up Rukia sees Renji’s face drawn tight and closed, cheeks pale and lips sealed in a grim line. He looks… spooked, to say the least, eyes fixed on the slender man’s face like he’s been hypnotized. It’s such an anti-Renji response, Rukia feels somehow disturbed.

Is that… recognition in Renji’s face?

Or fear?

 

The pink-haired man smirks at them insufferably before striding to the front door and leaving with the little bell over the frame tinkling cheerfully, and Renji just looks spellbound.

 

All at once the spell is broken. Renji turns on his heels to the group, shoulders tensed high against the crowd of eyes on his back. It doesn’t take Rukia’s amazing detective skills to deduce that something about his demeanor is dramatically different. “Whatever, let’s get out of here. Now’s as good a time to leave as any.”

He walks towards Rukia, at once all calm and controlled- unnaturally so- and offers his hand for Rukia to stand back up. “C’mon, it’s late. I’ll walk ya’ home, Rukia.”

“You don’t have to.” She says automatically, though logically Rukia knows that walking alone plus nighttime plus unfamiliar neighborhood equals bad.

Renji just shrugs her off. “I gotta wait for the train anyways. I have the time.” He turns to Rangiku and Kira, who still look uncomfortable and concerned. Uncomfortably concerned. “Are you two good?”

“Oh, right.” Rangiku tightens her scarf around her shoulder, at once falling back into her confident composure. “Kira, can I drive you home?” Izuru looks less decisive. His wide eyes don’t leave Renji, glued on and dripping with worry. He senses something is wrong, it rings in his soft voice.

“Abarai, are you sure-”

“Yeah, sure as sure.” Renji lumbers towards the door, rolling his shoulders back and putting the gruffness back into his rasping voice. “I got work tomorrow anyways. I can’t let you crazy kids keep me up all night. You ready, Rukia?”

Even if she wanted to find out what was going on with Renji, she sure wouldn’t get it done in front of people like this. “Yeah, I’m coming.” Rukia tries to give Rangiku and Izuru what she thinks is a reassuring look. “Thanks for tonight.” Before racing Renji to the door and emerging into the dark, swampy air.

“I’m staying with at the Urahara Shoten.” Rukia tells Renji as they walk. The air is electric with crickets chirping, a light breeze cuts through the August heat and cools the warm skin on the back of Rukia’s neck.

The clouds overhead are dark and purple, it should be a beautiful evening. Rukia can’t unravel this knot of paranoia in her gut.

At least as they gain some distance from the coffee shop, Renji’s mood seems to lighten. His humor reverts to a more natural state and he chuckles. “That place? I know it a lil’ bit. Hard not to, since the two guys and the lady that live there are kinda oddballs, to say the least. But they seem okay- nice kids.”

The image of brazen Jinta and skulking Ururu flutter into Rukia’s mind. She’s not mean or some kind of child-hater or whatever, but she has to deeply question what goes through Renji’s head when he thinks of ‘good kids’. His tolerance for shenanigans must be a skyscraper threshold.

“Yes, they’ve been really nice to me, considering I basically just dropped in on their heads.” Rukia explains. She has, once again, the opportunity to come clean about why she’s really here now and living with virtual strangers. She watches it crumble into ash as she forces the subject to shift. “What about you? What else have you been up to?”

Like with that guy in Mischief’s, of course. One word from him and Renji looked like he saw a ghost. What could the story possibly be? A bitter ex? An accidental victim risen from the grave a la ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’? Should Rukia call some sort of exorcist to come and purge this coffee joint?

“Eh, this and that.” Of course  Renji has nothing to say about that, choosing instead to feign obliviousness. Looking thoughtful and aimless, it’s infuriating for Rukia to not be able to make him say the truth. He’s always been like this, thinking he can just shove every problem under a rug and stop dealing with it. “You remember the old rec center from when we were kids?”

“Not for years.” Rukia admits, swallowing her frustration. The city rec center had been a staple of every child who was housed at the orphanage, was about the only place the kids could go aside from school to hang out while also being safe and supervised. Rukia and Renji spent their weekends in elementary school playing board games in the game room and practicing on the community soccer team.

The center’s volunteers did programs for the whole community. Not just for orphan kids, but for children from the neighborhood with poor families, for old people, for homeless folks, ecetera ecetera. For a while Rukia just assumed that her life was always going to gravitate between those three locations- school, the orphanage, and the rec center.

Renji’s face brightens, looking soft for a change with his teeth and eyes glittering under the yellow glow of an errant car’s headlights. “I volunteer there on weekends. It’s a lotta fun, actually.”

“No kidding?” Rukia tries not to sound as surprised as she feels. It’s not that Renji doesn’t seem like the volunteering type or whatever but…

Well, that’s kind of it. In the 48 hours Rukia has gotten back in touch with Renji again, nothing about him suggests that he can take care of himself, let alone those less fortunate at the center.

“Sure. I help with programs, work in the food pantry, I coach the kids’ sports sometimes.” Renji taps the list off absently on his fingers, eyes drifting up towards the sky and instantly lost in his thoughts. He looks a lot gentler like this, inked brows up, gaze a hundred miles away as he presumably thinks about his volunteer work and the kids working hard in their programs. Like there’s stardust in his eyes, lost in making things better than they are.

Rukia can’t help but smile back, even though Renji isn’t even looking at her. She feels weirdly proud of him. “That’s really sweet, Renji. I mean, I know the rec center meant alot to you way back when.”

“Yeah. I guess you an’ me are kinda descendents of that place.” Renji quips. He’s still wearing a bandana, though Rukia thinks it’s a different one than he wore when she saw him working security at the movie theater. It still makes him look like he just got off of work at some labor-intensive job. Though perhaps for Renji, everything is labor-intensive work.

Renji probably fits in perfectly at the rec center as a volunteer. Someone who went all his life never quite having enough, someone who understands that these things are difficult and take time. People would trust him, more than they’d ever trust some hokey bullshit about things getting better overnight or pulling oneself up by their bootstraps

“That really is amazing, Renji.” Rukia says, folding her hands behind her back as they walk. She means it with more earnesty and honestly than she could ever describe with words.

Rukia sighs. It’s been a nice night for the most part, she wishes it didn’t have to end so abruptly. As fun as it was meeting Izuru and Matsumoto, she has a hard time imagining herself contacting them to hang out again without Renji there as a buffer.

“Hey, Renji.” Rukia says, and she also wishes she weren’t about to say something that might make the evening a whole lot worse. “I’ve been wondering.”

Yellow headlights filter the space between them, not moving away. Renji perks up, “Yeah?”

“That car behind us has been following us for a while now, hasn’t it?”

Neither of them look back at the car, only hearing the soft rumble of the engine and feeling the heat of the headlights on their back. Rukia feels Renji slowly reach over, covering her small hand with his. This is all the warning that he gives her before bolting to the right, yanking Rukia with him so hard she feels her arm strain in its socket.

The street behind them disappears as Renji brings them into the mouth of a narrow alley, one much too small to fit a car through. But they lose the light of the streetlamps, blanketed by darkness and the wet reek of rotting trash. Rukia feels her stomach go sour. “Renji, what’s going on?”

“Dunno.” Renji grunts, his grip on Rukia’s wrist is vice-like. Rukia is almost as worried about him as she is their current situation.

“I don’t know where we are.” Rukia admits. She had only mentally mapped the straight route to the coffee shop from the Shoten on the main road, like a normal person who doesn’t expect to get tailed by a mysterious vehicle would. She didn’t plan on the two of them strutting through some dark and murder-y alley as if she’s supposed to know where to go from here.

Renji’s voice rasps in the darkness. “You have a phone, right? Can you navigate us?”

Indeed, she can. Rukia recovers her phone from her pocket, and meager light soaks into the darkness from the palm of her hand. Tapping on the screen urgently, she opens the map app and watches it flood the screen with relief. “Got it.”

Still relying on Renji as her guide, Rukia focuses on using her thumb to tap out the address for Urahara’s Shoten. She’s made it as far as ‘Urahara’ before something blocks her screen. A big, dark red box right in the middle of the phone screen with scrawling black text.

 

Y O U R  H E A R T  I S  R E A D Y  T O  U P D A T E

 

A C C E P T  /  D   C L I   E ?

 

“God.” Rukia grits her teeth, frantically tapping on the map behind the box to try and get the navigation back up, but with no dice. The window won’t close. She doesn’t have time for this. “ _Dammit._ ” And what exactly happened to the ‘decline’ option?

“Hold up, I think I know where we are.” Renji says, which Rukia decides is a more pressing matter than her phone. “This way.”

Sure enough, the alley eventually opens up and reveals the crisp sidewalks and glowing lights of the main road. After the brief experience with the mysterious car Rukia can’t say that it looks welcoming, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Even better, the road is now entirely empty. Not even the distant sound of a car horn or the flash of headlights to break the lonely, abandoned evening street. With the windows dark, it looks like everyone has vacated all at once and left the neighborhood lifeless like a collection of empty dollhouses.

 

They make it the rest of the way to the Shoten without further delay, in a state of silence that Rukia would confidently classify as uncomfortable.

The windows of the shoten are completely black, Rukia presumes that with the hour, everyone has already gone to bed. Before she left this evening Tessai had given her a house key, with the instructions that if she should come home late, she resist doing so in such a way that would be a bother to everyone else. Well, just call her Rukia ‘inconspicuous’ Kuchiki. If there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s considering all the ways she might inconvenience other people.

The door unlocks with a firm click, Rukia instantly feeling relief flood her body. She turns to Renji, who walked with her to the front door. “I’d invite you in for a bit, but it’s not my house, so…”

Renji shrugs it off easily, combing his fingers through his long, red hair. “I still got a train to catch anyways. But I’ll talk to ya’ soon, okay?”

Rukia stands on one side of the threshold, Renji stands on the other. She wonders suddenly if this is really okay, to send Renji out there alone. There’s a growling sound of Renji clearing his throat. “Listen, Rukia… don’t worry about what happened earlier, okay? You gotta be careful going out late at night in the city, even in good neighborhoods like this. There are always freaks running around. That’s just how it is.” Renji smiles crookedly, almost apologetically.

She’s not really in the mood for it, though. Rukia frowns. “Let me call you a cab to take you to the station, then.”

“No, the station’s only up the street. It’d be a waste.” Renji assures her. “Trust me, I’ll be real quick and real safe.”

“... alright.” She concedes. Clearly, Renji isn’t one to be pushed, a stubborn lug even after all these years. “Text me when you get home, though?”

Renji actually does laugh at that, not in a mean way but like a gut-punch. Rukia wonders why that’s funny. “Yeah, okay mom. I will.” Rukia just frowns at him, hands on her hips, and under her scrutiny his smile softens. “I mean it! I promise I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Stay safe.”

“You, too.”

The door closes between them. Rukia locks it back up while watching Renji from the window. The broad shape of his back ambles away from the porch before disappearing around the tight angle of the alley street.

 

Now, Rukia is alone for what feels like the first time in a long time. The house is locked up, Rukia should feel safe. Maybe by the time she’s settled down for bed, she actually will.

Within the house, there are signs of life- one of the kids’ nintendo DS placed on the coffee table, dishes from dinner washed and drying on the rack in the kitchen. Rukia opens the fridge, the door swinging open with a faint, persistent light and retrieving a juice box. It sure is dehydrating work, drinking lots of tea and then running around the city in the middle of the night.

As she closes the door and turns, something yellow cuts through the darkness. Automatically, rational thought flies out the window and Rukia thinks of those beaming headlights stalking her down the street, before she realizes that in fact what she’s looking at are two big, yellow eyes of an animal.

“Jesus.” Rukia gives herself a moment to breathe and let her heart slip out of her throat. The cat on the kitchen floor, black as it is, was all too easy to miss until now. It twitches its ears at her, delicately lifting one round little paw and licking at it with short swipes of a pink tongue.

Rukia doesn’t recall Urahara or his family mentioning a housepet, nor is the cat wearing a collar or anything. But it seems calm enough inside the house, and it looks awfully clean and well-fed to be a stray. Now that she thinks about it, Rukia thinks it’s pretty common for people in the city to let their cats roam around outside with no collar, right? Or is that for farms, which are the opposite of cities?

Whatever. The cat isn’t hurting anybody. Did it have to be a pitch black cat, though? Rukia scoots around it to the staircase, juice firmly locked in her fist and an uncharacteristic grumpy mutter in her throat. “Creepy fucking city…” It’s been a long evening indeed.

Upstairs, Rukia flicks the desklamp on, empties her pockets before she changes into pajamas. Taking her phone out of her jacket, the LNT Gen 5 wakes itself up suddenly, the mobile Butterfly app bouncing to life.

 **Renji** :

**Taking the train now. Omw home.**

 

It seems silly to worry about Renji, but Rukia can’t help but be relieved. She opens the messaging app to respond, but right on cue her phone takes her back to the frozen navigation app, and the red box just as it was before.

 

A C C E P T  /  D   C L I   E ?

 

She still doesn’t know what she’s accepting or declining, or why the text has glitched out so bad. Rukia sits on the edge of her bed and frowns. Where do these updates keep coming from, anyways?

Rukia’s thumb hovers over the D   C L I   E button. She gets bossed around and told what to do enough in her real life, thank you very much. No need for her phone to nag her too. But… it’s normal to be curious, right? If she pressed A C C E P T, what would happen? Would something change suddenly? Would anything happen at all?

Even if her phone is busted or hacked, it won’t make a difference in the long run. She’ll buy a new one like the spoiled heiress she is, so what’s really the worst that could happen?

Rukia’s finger lands squarely on the A C C E P T and the screen goes black.

 

**The virtue of this world is that you are never alone in it. Your story will forever collide with the stories of others, interweaving into a web of human connections. Eventually you can no longer see where your triumphs end and another’s downfall begins.**

**Now the contract has been sealed. The threads are unraveling.**

**And things are shaping up to be quite unusual.**


	4. The Fool (IV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all goes to hell. (Figuratively)
> 
> And then it all goes to Hell. (Literally)

~~~~For those who don’t know, the first week of school will likely have the exact same pattern from high school all through undergrad. There’s no point in trying to teach or learn any material, when at the end of the day the most important aspect is drilling the syllabus into student brains in order to give everyone time to prepare for finals and churn out those most holy test scores. It’s also to weed out the students who will show up to lecture once in awhile and those who will drop off the face of the planet when they learn attendance isn’t mandatory.

Students, look to your left. Now look to your right. By the end of the semester, one of these two people will vanish. Perhaps having dropped the class. Perhaps fed into the eldritch creature who lives under the dean’s office as referenced in chapter 2.

It not as if Rukia isn’t motivated, don’t misunderstand. Even packed into a sweltering auditorium, trying to decode the mystifying sigils comprising the professor’s powerpoint on class structures in the Japanese feudal system, she’s absolutely giving it her all.

Trying to, anyways. Like, 40% at the minimum!

If Rukia is honest with herself- completely, brutally honest- last semester was a trainwreck from start to finish. And it wasn’t just the whole ‘Oops, I got expelled!’ shtick that had her riding the rails. It wasn’t just her friend getting tormented and harassed by someone that she should have been able to trust. It wasn’t just that some days Rukia felt she didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, haunted by the shrieking of her HellBrain that she was on the verge of some unknown but surely imminent disaster. It was all of those things together, plus a few extras.

Rukia’s not surprised at all by these sudden ‘mental breakdown’ phenomenons. She’s feels a little bit like she’s been approaching one herself for years now.

Anywhoo. After a week of anticipation, school is happening. Education is taking place. Rukia is now enthralled in this tremendous, harrowing, and expensive endeavor known as academia. She’s up to her goddamn eyeballs in knowledge, she can’t even stand it.

She had predicted that the school library would be a good place to study. Even with classes now in full swing, the building is still crazy empty. There’s a small coffee shop on the first floor, Rukia makes to put more caffeine in her flesh prison before getting to work.

 

“One medium au lait, please.” Rukia fumbles haphazardly with her wallet while balancing a stack of textbooks in her arms like the lesbian-coded nerdy support-character in a 90’s movie, taking the paper cup of coffee and nearly bowling over the person behind her. “Sorry-”

“You’re all right- Ah, Kuchiki-san, I thought it was you. Hi!” A familiar voice says, soft and melodic. Izuru, wide-eyed, narrowly dodges Rukia pouring scalding coffee all over him. He sees her bearing her many burdens with the tenacity of one approaching a wily and dangerous animal. “Hey, can I give you a hand with those, maybe?”

“Oh, Kira! Jeeze, you snuck up on me.” Rukia says before realizing that Izuru literally hadn’t been doing anything but standing there. She juggles the coffee in one hand and stack of books in the other in a way that looks slightly less dangerous. “Don’t worry about me- everything is under control.” She’s so graceful and coordinated, who could ever doubt her?

“Yes, of course.” Izuru sidesteps so that Rukia can move out of the way of the line, frog-marching to the nearby table where she had placed her backpack and various homework materials. “I’m sorry to bother you if you’re focusing on something important.”

“God. Never in my life.” Rukia says automatically, finally settling her stuff down on the table. “I didn’t know you were a student here, Kira-san.”

“Used to be. I finished my undergraduate degree here about a year ago. Now I’m just the kind of very odd person who hangs around the library because I can’t get any work done if I stay at home.”

“You’re not very odd.” Rukia assures him, leaning her hip against the edge of the table. “Maybe just the appropriate level of odd.”

“Yes, thank you. The level of oddness was exactly the issue I was trying to resolve. I was concerned that I was treading dangerous waters in the ‘weird’ side of the spectrum, but now I can see I’m safely locked into ‘quirky’.” Izuru has a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He fiddles his long fingers around the strap, looking nervous even when he’s speaking friendly. There’s a shy smile on his thin lips as he looks towards the floor.

She doesn’t mind Izuru teasing her a little. Rukia can feel like Izuru is starting to come out of his shell, and that makes her feel less terribly awkward in kind. “I had a lot of fun hanging out with you and Renji and Matsumoto. I don’t really know anybody in the city, so I really appreciate you letting me come along.”

Some of the tenseness in Izuru’s shoulders appears to recede, his smile looking less forced and his face looking altogether less flustered and uncomfortable. “It was our pleasure, of course. This is probably strange to just say, but I always sort of regretted not having the chance to get to know you better before, so I was glad I got to meet you again.”

“It’s not strange.” Rukia can’t describe how sweet that is, she hadn’t even considered that someone aside from Renji ever noticed her absence. “In that case, we’ll have to do it again sometime.”

“I would like that. Very much. But for now, I should let you get back to your own business.” Izuru adjusts his bag, looking towards the door like he’s about to exit. Before he moves, though, the blond man bounces on the soles of his shoes before looking back at Rukia indecisively.

“Kuchiki-san, I’m sorry if this sounds nosy, but you’re going to be living here for a while, right? Are you going to be looking out for Renji like you did in the past?”

Rukia’s brain tries to decode this question, but she’s just not really sure what Izuru means. Or why he’s asking. Like, is she gonna stick by Renji’s side like glue and tie his shoelaces for him or whatever like when they were kids? Probably not.

Without meaning to, Rukia thinks once more of the pink-haired man in glasses. Of Renji’s face flat with some emotion that she can’t describe or interpret. If there’s anything Rukia could do to keep Renji happy and out of trouble, there’s no doubt that she would give it her all.

“I’ll do my best.” Rukia answers, and is relieved that when the words come out they sound more like a promise and less like she’s admitting her limitations.

Izuru’s face brightens under his long bangs, a touch of color rising to his soft cheeks. “That’s good. Abarai has always looked out for his friends, after all. Including me. Sometimes especially me. I’m sure he appreciates you being around.”

He scurries away on long, lanky legs. Rukia is forced to once again regard the recent increase of cryptic conversations in her life as of the last few days.

What an odd boy, indeed.

 

 

Rukia and Renji grew up in Shibuya, in a small corner of the city that was only remarkable in how ordinary it was. Not that this statement really means anything. If Rukia were to say she grew up in an ordinary neighborhood to the people of Karakura town, they might take that to mean a subdivision of trimmed lawns and two-story houses rather than the broad apartment complexes and cement parks that tailored her childhood.

The old recreation center is exactly where Rukia left it, a brick building worn pale with age and flanked by the thin saplings that she and the rest of Rukia’s daycare planted over ten years ago. The infantile saplings have now grown into thin, bendy, stick-like adolescent trees that have managed to effortfully produce a few green leaves each. On the sidewalk to the front door there are chalk drawing and on the door there are flyers for an upcoming job fair.

There’s not a lot of space to go around in his neighborhood, but a flat plain of yellowing grass suits the kid’s soccer teams just fine. Rukia sees a whole gaggle of kids sprinting around the field with the controlled fury of what can only describe youths playing sports. They’re all around the age of ten to twelve, long-limbed and uncoordinated even as both teams manage to compete for possession of the ball. Rukia has memories of watching Renji on that field, while she herself preferred to sit on the sidelines and draw, hoping not to be noticed.

But regardless, the busy-body Renji of the past is not her concern right now. Rukia needs the busy-body Renji of the present.

He’s hard to miss, even among the flurry of young athletes surrounding him like an adolescent windstorm. Renji stands with his toe nearly on the white line of the field, looking very serious with his hands on his hips and a whistle like Rukia has seen coaches wear in movies.

For once, Renji’s loud voice seems to have a useful purpose aside from getting him shushed by high school teachers. “Alroy- remember, the ball goes in the net! Shots over don’t count.” He seems absorbed. Rukia just takes position standing beside a few other adults who she presumes are parents or babysitters. There are far less grown-ups here than there are kids for each one to have a present guardian.

Boy howdy Rukia doesn’t know anything about sports, but those tenacious children sure are kicking that there spherical object around the field. She recognizes, at least, that they are all working very hard, which is the greater purpose of the rec center’s programs like these.

Eventually Renji blows the whistle, which Rukia interprets to mean it is time to now stop moving the spherical object around the field. The players turn to him with rapt attention. “Alright, ten minute break. Everyone go get water, use the bathroom. No off-field fights. We settle our disputes here through laborious physical competition like adults.”

The children disperse, dividing between the water cooler and the pathway inside the rec center where the washrooms are. Despite having just been allocated into two teams, the whole group intermingles easily until Rukia quickly loses track of who was originally aligned with whom. Such is this beautiful phenomena known as sportsmanship.

 

From his position still hovering around the field, Renji shares words with a red-haired, wildly freckled boy. As Rukia approaches, she can hear the stern but affectionate words of a star coach. “You gotta show a little restraint out there, Alroy. I know that slide on the grass and overhead kick into the goal was totally sick, but that’s gonna be hell on your knees tomorrow morning and that’s no good. Need t’ be able to stand in order to play, capiche?”

The Alroy boy nods, a dangerous glitter of determination in his eye. “Cup-eesh, Coach.”

“Atta’ boy. Go cool off.” Renji slaps him on the back and sends the kid running off. He straightens back up and turns, catching Rukia in his gaze and grinning broadly. “Well, look who showed up! Are you gonna be our cheerleader?”

“Soccer doesn’t have cheerleaders, dumdum.” Rukia says without any malice, walking closer so that Renji can get a better look at her sassy folding of the arms over her chest and smirking. “I’m impressed, though. When we were kids, the sports program was basically a few hapless adults letting the children run wild like monkeys hopped up on Capri-Sun and the occasional pizza coupon.”

Renji scoffs, scratching his neck and doing a terrible job at not glowing with pride. “Yeah, pretty much. What can I say? I guess I’m just the greatest coach in the whole world for all time and space, basically.”

“Hmm,” Rukia raises her eyebrow. “Basically. And so humble, as well. What is it like to be God’s great gift to us mortals in the shape of a volunteer youth sports coordinator.”

Renji puts a hand to his heart meaningfully, angling his chin towards the ground in a show of extensive humility. “I can’t say it’s easy to be burdened with so many talents and skills, but every day is a blessing stitched together in white and black patches to be kicked into the goal of success.”

“Such a true saint you are.”

“Yeah, okay. Now if we’re done saying stupid things and fun goofs, you’re still welcome to stick around for the game.” Renji offers, and jabs his thumb backwards towards his players, some of whom are beginning to trickle back from their breaks and loiter among the lawn, catching their breath and chatting up their friends. “The audience is a lil’ sparse this week. I know the kids would appreciate another fan to cheer them on.”

“Um. Yeah, sure.” It’s not like Rukia truly has anything better to do. It doesn’t seem entirely wholesome to be an adult at a kids’ soccer game when she has no participating young family members of her own, but as long as Renji says it would be a nice thing to do for the kids. “Why not?”

 

Rukia takes a seat on the grass and waits for the match to begin again, the two teams arranging themselves. Sitting close to the parents and other guardians, Rukia has to admit that her supportful cheering can’t hold a candle to their enthusiasm, small as the crowd may be. Two moms (one with a baby strapped to her chest) even hold up a hand-painted banner made with an adorable amount of glitter, held aloft among cheers of “Go get ‘em, baby!”. It seems that having the kids do team activities and wholesome competitions is probably good as for the parents as much as it is for the kids themselves. They must really love their children.

Rukia frowns a little as the dark cloud of unwanted thoughts threatens to worm it’s greedy, slimy tentacles into her brain. Now of all times, huh?

Is this the future that Byakuya (or at least, some esteemed members of the Kuchiki family) wanted for her? For Rukia to be a mom, driving her kids to soccer games or piano lessons, devoting her whole life to her children and her presumably very male husband. It isn’t a terrible life at all. Rukia can see how these parents here, who are so passionate for their child to succeed, may even love it with their whole hearts. It’s admirable, surely. But when Rukia tries to imagine herself there, with a Rukia Jr or something bouncing on her hip she just feels sick and sad.

Besides, even if she did have children she wouldn’t be taking them to the rec center for sports. As heirs of the Kuchiki bloodline, they’d be slated for bigger and better things from the moment they slid out of Rukia’s birth canal. Unlike her, they’d be the perfect descendents that could be molded from day one into suitable successors. They’d probably receive letters of recommendation to prestigious private schools before they’re even conceived.

Rukia shakes her head, wishing or hoping she could jarr those thoughts loose and kick them like an amazing MVP forward strike into the goal of oblivion. There are no kids. There is no husband. Nothing is set in stone.

Meanwhile, back at the game of sportsball, Rukia focuses on trying to gather the rules of this soccer match. The kids are back to assaulting the spherical object up and down the field. A particularly talented child dribbles the ball between her ankles, and Rukia is appropriately impressed.

The game succeeds to actually be pretty engaging, so the noise of a car motor growling loudly and distracting Rukia manages to wield sincere irritation.

Over her shoulder, Rukia sees an approaching white car roll up to the curb and halt itself in front of the rec center. It doesn’t appear to be the vehicle of a well-meaning parent showing up late for the game, all shiny and white and looking like the kind of luxury car Rukia thinks that Byakuya would enjoy.

The engine sounds awfully familiar. The outline of the car is apparent, whether in broad daylight or dim darkness. Rukia is no car scientist (or ‘mechanic’ as she hears is more common to address them) but she is filled with a grim certainty that this is the same car that had tailed Rukia and Renji the night of the coffee shop.

Rukia’s eyes switch between Renji and the new car, though she’s not sure what outcome she expects. Renji seems entirely focused on the game, and Rukia watches as the man with pink hair slithers out of the driver’s side, flanked by two larger, burlier men skulking after him like vultures at a piece of rotting carrion. She’s compelled to inch towards Renji on the edge of the field, psst-ing at the redhead to get his attention. “Renji!”

Attention successfully garnered, Renji rips his eyes away from the kids to catch Rukia’s gaze. And in doing so he, catches a glimpse of the white car, and of the pink-haired man in his obnoxious fashions slowly approaching. The inked markings on Renji’s brow furrows deeply, his lips twist in a grim frown.

“Is everything okay?” Rukia asks, despite the obvious signs that it very much isn’t.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Renji claps his massive hand on Rukia’s shoulder, the force is easily enough to jostle her skeleton inside her skin without Renji even putting any weight behind it. “Keep an eye on the kids for me for a sec, okay? I’ll get rid of these guys.”

She could argue, for what it’s worth. But Renji doesn’t seem in the mood to debate. He leaves her at the cusp of the soccer game and goes to meet the man by his car. Rukia can’t hear what they say over the din, but after a brief exchange they both walk around the corner of the rec center and out of Rukia’s line of sight.  

Now, she has an executive decision to make here. Rukia has to admit, it does feel hypocritical for her to want to shove her nose into Renji’s business- she’s failed to keep up with him for the greater part of a decade, before inserting herself back into his life, his hobby, his friend circle. Rukia owes to Renji, if nothing else, the right to his own life and to be left alone from snooping meddlers and their flighty malarky.

But Rukia doesn’t really care.

She spots the redheaded kid from earlier, the Alroy boy, sitting on the bench and observing the game with rapt attention. It doesn’t seem anyone else has noticed Renji slip off yet, which suits Rukia just fine. “Hey, kid. Alroy.”

He blinks to her with wide eyes before pointing at himself questioningly. Rukia nods in confirmation, and he scampers up to her. “Keep an eye on the kids for me, okay? Renji and I will be right back.”

Reko nods in confirmation, and Rukia fortifies her dedication to snoopy meddling and flighty malarky.

 

The two large men who were in the car did not follow Renji and the pink-haired man. They just remain leaning their hips against the hood of the car and look vaguely menacing. Rukia circles around the rec center the opposite way, trying to keep herself pressed against the brick exterior and not look like she’s obviously skulking about the premises.

“… can’t show up here like this outta’ the damn blue.”

Renji’s voice, definitely. But not his normal ‘I’m so bursting with confidence and zest’ voice. He sounds stressed, the pitch of his voice slightly more gravely and strained than what Rukia is used to hearing.

The pink-haired man replies, his voice oozing like petroleum and sticky to survey. “As much as I regret interrupting your little games, you’re not exactly in a position to make demands, Mr. Abarai. You stopped responding to my calls. If I didn’t know better, I’d admit that my feelings were hurt by this chilly reception.”

Rukia crouches down in a cluster of shrubbery, all sneaky-like. It seems silly that Renji is intimidated by a man who talks all melodramatic like this, acts like this. He reeks of entitlement, and probably needs to be shoved into a locker ASAP.

Renji grunts, sounding less pleased with this conversation by the second. “You didn’t give me any time to respond! And don’t think I didn’t notice you raising the debt, that’s such horseshit. Nobody can come up with that much money that fast.”

“It’s a perfectly fair interest rate, Abarai. You know, every day that you refuse to pay me back, you’re basically taking money out of my pockets. I think I’m being more than generous.” The sleazy man continues. “Of course, if you really feel like you’re having trouble making ends meet, you could always come work for me at my business. With the very equitable salary I pay all my underlings, I’m sure you can pay off those pesky loans in no time.”

Rukia is no career counselor, nor has she ever had what one might consider a ‘real job.’ But she knows something unmistakably fishy when she hears one. Renji seems to share similar suspicions.

“You wanna give me a job, Granz? As what, one of yer’ hired goons?”

“That’s a bit judgemental, don’t you think. Ah, how can I put this gently?” The man that Renji called Granz sounds like he’s stroking his chin nefariously, or steepling his fingers. At least he is in Rukia’s imagination, which is the most real thing she has to go off of right now.

“People like you should focus on using your strengths. I mean, look at yourself- you’re a strong, healthy young thing alright, but you look rather scrappy and slow. You obviously don’t have the necessary background or skills to advance in professional society. Why not use your natural advantages in a field where they can benefit you?”

There’s an unpleasant, unfamiliar prickling sensation under Rukia’s skin. She realizes it is her blood boiling.

It’s not the first time she’s heard someone be unkind to Renji like this. Usually it was teachers at their school who found subtle ways to explain to Renji that he was a dumbass with no future, that he was a natural-born hazard, and if there was any positive impact he could have on the school at large it was by making himself as little of a burden as possible. It was a terrible thing indeed, to be loud and emotional and unwanted. Rukia was about the only one unsurprised when Renji channeled all that frustration into his athletics and his honor classes.

Then again, it was never like Rukia didn’t get her fair share.

The man called Granz makes a thoughtful noise, like something has just come up or occurred to him. Before Renji even has the chance to retort, he says primly, “We’ll have to cut this meeting off here. Other business to address today, but I’ll give you this- bring me your payment in two weeks. If you really are smarter than you look, that should be no problem. Otherwise I’ll be forced to start taking in collateral to make up for your shortcomings. Till then, Abarai-san.”

He leaves Renji there, standing in the shadow of the building. Rukia remains seated on her heels, risking bugs in her hair in favor of counting her breaths, waiting until it seems like Granz is gone and Renji is finally alone.

Eventually, as her heart slows from a terrible anxious pounding to the more usual anxious pounding that Rukia is accustomed to, she can hear the heavy sound of Renji’s footsteps beginning to trail in her direction. She will not be able to keep herself secreted away for long anyways, so there’s no point in staying hidden. “You’re in debt?”

She can’t blame Renji for looking startled, shooting a bewildered expression to where Rukia stands out of the bushes like the wild wolfgirl. “What the fuck, Rukia?”

“Yeah, I hid in the bushes to eavesdrop. You can be shocked and surprised at my morally repugnant behaviour all you want.” Rukia presses. “Meanwhile, I’m actually concerned with real things. Like that smarmy-sounding dude, and the fact that I’m honestly kinda scared for you right now.”

“You were just sitting there in the dirt like a weirdo?”

“No! Obviously I was just sitting here in the dirt like some kinda concerned-for-my-friend person!”

Renji’s frown is still twisted on his face, though he doesn’t look angry at Rukia. He looks more… embarrassed. And very tired. Dark shadows sit under his brown eyes, Rukia wonders how she didn’t notice them more starkly before. “It’s not a big deal, alright? Don’t go blowing things out of proportion.”

Rukia would argue she has never blown a single thing out of proportion in her life, if that wasn’t a bold-faced lie and not what she was focusing on right now. She watches Renji exert a more morose attitude than she’s comfortable with as he sits down against the wall of the rec center, pressing his back against the uneven bricks. Rukia sits and scoots over next to him, knees pulled up to her chest.

Renji begins when he’s ready, sitting criss-cross bouncing the heel of his sneaker nervously. “I thought I knew how to explain this hit but… y’know there’s not actually that much to explain. I worked landscaping a few years back, it was fine but I had a pretty serious accident on the job. It was easy to keep on top of everything when I was working, but after I lost that gig the expenses really cleaned me out. I took out a loan, as you do,” He gestured vaguely and in a dismissive fashion. “… a’right, a few loans. And I’ve had this Szayel Aporro Granz-shaped tumor stuck under my skin ever since.”

He has Rukia’s rapt attention, and she feels for him. Renji has never been known to not take anything personally, whether it’s an accomplishment or a failure. “So now he’s on your case just for a loan? How much was it?”

“Well, the first one was just for the medical bills and a little rent money…” Renji explains, suddenly trying and failing to look innocent. “But other stuff came along…”

Against their backs, Rukia feels the gritty, age-worn bricks dig into her spine. The shadow of the recreation center looms over them, too old and weary to advance but too valuable to allow to be destroyed.

“Last winter, the center was really struggling with pulling cash together.” Renji goes on, absently waving one hand above him in the direction of the building. “You know, the holidays are rough. Donations were kinda slim pickings, getting presents for the kids’ gift-exchanges and all. So I figured, ‘hey, I’m already in the shit. Might as well go big.’”

“Oh, Renji…” Rukia lets her head fall back against the brick wall.

There’s an obvious solution here, though Rukia doesn’t want to hurt Renji’s feelings by making him think she’s pitying him. On the other hand, she doesn’t mind Renji being a big baby if it’s for his own good.

“I could give you the money.” It would be the right thing to do, yeah? Rukia eyes Renji out of the corner of her gaze carefully. “Before you get all huffy, just think like a rational person. My family won’t even notice it’s gone, and you can get back to your life.”

Predictably, Renji looks irate. His nose crinkles and he shakes his head stubbornly, like a dog shaking a bad scent from its muzzle. “Fuck no. If Granz thought I was connected to the Kuchikis of all people, he’d never get off my ass. He’ll just be even more of an exploitive pain and try to drain both of us for all we’re worth.”

She wants to argue, but of course Rukia has no guarantees that this won’t happen. Rukia wants to keep this Aporro Granz away from Renji, not give him another excuse to keep stalking him around the city. “This guy’s a real piece of work, huh? You’re sure there’s nothing you can do about that phony interest rate spiel?”

“It might be phony, but technically it’s all legal.” Renji admits. “That asshole is just a bottom-feeding prick who lurks around neighborhoods like this, waiting for someone down on their luck to stumble along so he can get his grimy claws in them and invent a new scam. People aren’t even people to him, just objects he can toy with and torment.”

The idea of Aporro Granz as an evil scientist like Rukia has seen in movies is far from ill-fitting. With those glasses and that white overcoat like a lab smock, he looks like a nefarious doctor. She might actually believe that human beings are just convenient opportunities and experiments to him. “And parts of Tokyo like this are his laboratory.”

Yes, she would consider that description to be with visceral and well-fitting. This metaphor is only for descriptive purposes, and will probably never occur to Rukia again.

They both sit there for a little while longer, probably in a mutual state of ruminating. Rukia speaks up first, finding it in herself to give Renji a little reassuring elbow-jab in the bicep. “I’m gonna help you figure this out, you know. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to.”

Renji looks less than convinced, pinching the bridge of his nose before effortfully rising to his feet. “Well, you get back to me on that. For now, let’s get back to the kids and finish up this match like good sportsadults, okay?”

Rukia stands up as well, picking twigs and bits of grit out of the back of her hair. Oh, the sacrifices that one must heroically make for the sake of very good spy mastering.

“I can’t believe you were hiding in the bushes. Absolutely amazing.”

“I panicked.”

 

Rukia dejectedly trails after Renji, and just hopes at this point she hasn’t made things worse. The last thing she needs right now is a fight to break out or a fire or an apocalyptic dayterror to happen because Rukia left a bunch of tweens unattended for a few minutes.

“What the hell?”

Such is tragically not the case.

“Where’d all the kids go?” Indeed, the field seems suddenly vacated. But it isn’t just the players who have disappeared- the parents watching from the sidelines, the cars parked on the side of the road. Even the equipment is gone. All that remains are white lines in the grass.

Renji is taught with anxiety, running his hand over his bandana and yanking on the base of his ponytail. “Oh, Christ. D’you think Granz said something to them? If he’s trying to get under my skin by scaring everyone away-”

Rukia looks upwards at Renji, and then double-takes when she sees the redhead standing strikingly against peculiar, sickly plum-colored sky. “Hey, Renji?” She points upwards. “City air pollution, or…?”

It’s as if a dark cloud had suddenly swept in over the city, painting the sky a murky, smoky violet. The air suddenly reeks with a sickly sweetness, like the odor of rotting fruit left out to bake in the sun.

“Oh, wow. Not pollution.” Renji whistles lowly and frowns at the sky. “Uh, global warming?”

“Probably not.” Rukia squints. Though not your typical, run-of-the-mill airborne toxins, the churning storm of purple above really does seem to resemble smoke. Smoke that, she realizes, is pouring out of a chimney as she traces the trail with her eyes. “Is that… the rec center?”

The ground level of the building seems to be in the same ordinary state it was before. Same old brick walls, same low and sturdy stature. Aside from that, however, the center looks like it has been gutted up and infused into some enormous machine, with huge glass tubes rupturing out of the sidewalk and the lawn and jammed in through the windows and doorways. From craters in the ground breaking apart the dirt and the grass, the tubes pump some dark, oozing elixir from the earth into building, pulsating like the pull of blood through a nervous system.

From the low rooftops, a white tower lurches from the ceiling and scrapes at the smoggy sky overhead. Smog descends from the top of the tower in dark fumes. Rukia suddenly feels nauseous, overcome by a great sense that this is very, very wrong. Buildings do not spontaneously develop new, strange architecture, just like the sky does not spontaneously turn purple.

Next to her, Rukia hears the deep sound of Renji inhaling. “Just wondering, but are you also hallucinating that the rec center turned into an evil-looking tower with a bunch of tubes and stuff in it.”

“That sure is the thing that I’m seeing right now with my eyes.” Rukia confirms.

“Okay, just checking. I hate it.” Renji looks at Rukia. She looks at him back. He looks… she wouldn’t say nervous, more apprehensive. There probably isn’t an appropriate way to react when one’s physical surroundings have suddenly transmogrified. “So… what do we do about this?”

She was afraid that he was going to ask that, and in response Rukia just shrugs. “What else? Go inside and investigate.”

“Why the fuck would we do that?”

Rukia shrugs, cringing bravely. “Because maybe this is all a misunderstanding?”

 

Rukia knows what the inside of the center is supposed to look like. She’s been here only a million times. Long enough to know the wide, open space of the foyer and the bulletin boards covered in flyers and children’s drawings. She knows the carpet always smells a little bit like cigarettes, but not so much in a gross way as much as in a grandparent way that makes it more okay.

With this version of the center, there’s no grandparent-y smell at all. Unless one’s grandparent had a natural odor of bleach and disinfectant, as if that particular grandparent had recently been fumigated.

The floors and walls are a uniform, blinding white that sting Rukia’s eyes. The interior seems to be devoid of light source, yet harsh glares bounces off the pristine and polished surfaces. Only a few moments after Rukia sets foot through the doors, she narrowly avoids walking face-first into what appears to be another glass tube stuck in the floor like a pillar.

“The interior decorating sure has done a number since I was last here. Like an hour ago.” Renji follows after Rukia, observing the rows of glass containers as Rukia gets her bearings over the one that had nearly tripped her. When Rukia takes her hands away from the glass, a little bit of the surface becomes clearer.

The glass is cold to her skin. Rukia wipes her palm across the surface of the tube, only to leap back at least a foot as the fog reveals a shape looking alarmingly like a human head and shoulders bobbing limply in the water. “I think… there are people in these things.” She feels pale and cold. Why did Rukia decide to come in here? This is the worst decision anyone in a horror movie could ever make, she might as well serve herself on a skewer for the knife-murderer.

“What, like human people?”

“No, Renji. Like frog people. Yeah, like human people!” Rukia says, and then has to rethink that statement. “I think.”

Okay. Let’s be smart about this. Buildings don’t change on their own. Renji is here, seeing the same stuff that Rukia is seeing, so that at least proves she’s not delusional. She’s sure any second, an ordinary human volunteer will come in through those big, swinging white doors and explain what all this prop stuff is. For, like, a haunted house event or something.

Yeah, Rukia knows this is sounding like a pathetic plea for an easy answer.

She probably deserves these big hulking monsters bursting through the door and shattering her hopes, too.

The tiled floor shakes and rumbles under a great, hulking weight. From a set of double doors, about six lumbering figures charge into the foyer, two in at a time and pushing big, metal trolleys that squeak agonizingly against the floor. Their bodies are a dark, billowy mass, their faces like white sheets of porcelain, massive hands like catcher’s mitts clasp limply around the handles of the metal trolleys. Absurdly, they’re all wearing green hospital scrubs like extras on a doctor tv show. It takes away a sliver of menace from the bizarre creatures, but not too much.

Rukia reels back, and as her sneakers scuffle against the slick floor she sees Renji step in front of her defensively. His bravery is admirable even in the face of a painfully ridiculous situation. “Alright, joke’s over. Take off the weird costumes, assholes, this isn’t funny!” It doesn’t take Rukia’s fast, scared rodent brain too long to realize they are surrounded.

A new voice echoes around the room, and a new shadow emerges from the open doors. Unfortunately, this figure is not unfamiliar like the strange behemoths. “Have these specimens escaped from their containment? How embarrassing.”

Szayel Aporro Granz, clad in a white lab coat buttoned from his throat to his knees, stands flanked by two more of the scrub-wearing beings. His eyes are yellow and flash like gold coins, glowing dangerously behind his thick glasses. A thin, gloved hand points at Renji and Rukia distastefully with a crooked finger, as if pointing at big, hairy spiders. “Return them to an available unit at once! Aporro Granz Industries is the most advanced facility in the world, and I won’t have that reputation besmirched by a clumsy breach of security.”

“Oh, hell no.” Renji mutters before one of the huge creatures slams into his chest with the metal cart at full speed. Following the sinking noise of a body being hit with great force, Renji crumples to the floor and Rukia doesn’t even realize she just screamed until her ears are ringing.

Two powerful hands close around her arms and squeeze. Something covers her mouth and tastes sickly sweet, and Rukia’s vision goes dark on Renji’s unconscious body.

 

 

It’s later. How much later, Rukia isn’t sure. That’s the secret to being unconscious. It’s that you aren’t aware of events happening around you until you wake up. That’s the definition of unconscious.

For a moment, Rukia hopes that it’s all a very foul dream, resulting from her own uneasy mental state and ice cream before bedtime. It isn’t, however. Her dreams aren’t usually so obnoxiously white and fluorescent, so she tragically has to deduce that this is real. Probably.

Rukia sits up, putting her palm to her temple and willing away this pounding headache. No more chloroform for you, missy. You’ve had enough. She becomes aware that she had been lying down on the floor, and that there’s a Renji-shaped lump lying down not far from her.

Right! Renji. He got a nasty wallop from that monster. Rukia scoots over to him and tenderly shakes his shoulder. “Renji. Hey. Buddy, we gotta get un-kidnapped.”

He grumbles, eyes fluttering open and hand going up to rub his chin sleepily. “I’m okay. I’m awake.” Rukia, without thinking about it, accidentally brushes her head against his midsection and he hisses in pain. Ah, right. She’d be shocked if there wasn’t a real nasty bruise under there. Renji’s narrow eyes open with a look of displeasure. “Hi.”

“Sorry, but get up! I’ve seen this movie before, once there are creepy, goofy henchmen-things working for the evil scientist, it’s time to make a heroic, tactical retreat.” Rukia urges, putting her hands on the floor and hopping up to her feet. “It looks like we’re in some kind of cell.”

It sure does. Five out of the six possible surfaces of the box they’re in are plain white, with the odd texture of some kind of firm plastic. The sixth is a clear wall looking out. Rukia puts her fingertips to the material, which looks like glass but feels like plastic as well.

Outside, she sees a hall. In that hall, she sees dozens upon dozens of other cells stacked on top of each other in a grid. Some of them are empty. Some of them are not, though Rukia cannot see clearly what is contained in those cells. She has a feeling that it doesn’t matter, because the thickness of the glass makes her suspect they’re soundproofed in here, completely isolated.

“-one.” Renji grumbles, rolling onto his side and then up until a sitting position. Rukia focuses her attention back on him.

“What?”

“Phone!” Renji repeats with more force, pulling an older model LNT from his pants pocket. He holds it up wards the ceiling and squints at the screen. “I’m not getting any signal in here. Try yours.”

Oh, right. Rukia scrambles with her pockets to retrieve her phone, heart falling once again when she sees absolutely no bars, no connection at all. “Oh…”

But there is something else. A red square blinks on her phone screen, lined up under her other apps as if she had just downloaded it. Though, of course, Rukia has no recollection of downloading anything onto her app that looks like a red eye.

Hold up.

“Oh?”

“‘Oh’ what?” Renji echoes, but Rukia waves him off. She opens up the app, and her phone screen goes black all at once, before white lines draw themselves up and down in peculiar patterns. There’s a white arrow in the middle of the screen, and when Rukia tilts her phone from side to side the arrow tilts as well.

“I think I have a map.” Rukia says, putting the tip of her finger against the screen and trying to get a better glimpse of her surroundings.

“A map is not what we need.” Renji growls, poking at his own phone furiously. “A way out is what we need! Jesus, I’d even settle for the cops at this point, rather than deal with more Granz’s ‘Dr. Moreau’ shtick. The second I see a scalpel and some thread I swear I will flip my shit.”

Rukia puts her index finger and her thumb together against the map, then opens them in the universal tech-signal for ‘zoom out’. The map shrinks in response to show the street, and a location name pops up over the building where the arrow remains. Rukia reads it out loud. “Palace: The Heretic’s Laboratory.”

“Wassat supposed to mean?” Renji finally gives up and shoves his phone into his pocket. Rukia can see that the screen is dark, she doubts it even turned on.

“I don’t know. But if I was gonna go with the option that makes the most sense now…” Rukia puts a finger to her lips thoughtfully, furrowing her brow. “I’d guess we’re not in… the same place we were before. Like. Physically. And. Maybe. Inter-dimensionally?”

Renji looks utterly unimpressed, finally standing up on his own and cringing as his bruises likely assault him. “You think we’re in another dimension, hmm? Okay. That’s fun, I’ll play along.” His frown doesn’t exactly lift her confidence. Renji turns a glare towards the window of the cell.

“I gotta say. For another dimension, that Szayel sure seemed a lot like the real thing. But also, like, exaggerated? Like he was doing a bit, where he was trying to act like an even more controlling and obsessive douchebag version of himself. Something was off.”

“And after we just agreed he was like an evil scientist, we ended up in this spooky laboratory place.” Rukia points out, then taps on a rectangular icon with a circle in the middle on the corner of the map. “I wonder if there are consequences to the fact that we said that, and then this happened immediately afterwards. Hey, there’s a camera in this app!”

“Awesome. We’ll take selfies as we rot away together in this hellcage. It’s just what I wanted, Rukia. We’re saved!”

“It’s for collecting evidence, obviously.” Rukia aims the camera in the direction of Renji standing in front of the glass window. The phone makes a loud ‘clicking’ noise like an old-timey camera, before a smaller version of the picture appears in a bar on the bottom of the screen. She presumes that’s where her saved photos get stored. “Nobody’s gonna believe us when we get out of here unless we show them proof.”

“Fine, but the key to getting out of here is getting out in the first place.” Renji’s eyes turn analytically back towards the interior of the cell, then fix on one corner in particular. “I think that’s an air vent over there. If I boost you up, can you try and pull it off?”

“Sure. But me pulling you up there after I climb inside? Significantly less likely.”

“I’ll jump. I got long legs, okay? Just stand under it and I’ll lift you up.”

Together, the plan follows through without a hitch. Renji easily raises Rukia up, lifting her by her legs, and Rukia just hangs onto the grate of the vent and leans back, letting gravity do all the heavy work for her. It clatters to the floor, and after watching Renji attempt to stuff himself inside the air vent for about five minutes they both manage to climb inside.


	5. The Fool (V)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I am thou, thou art I
> 
> From the sea of thy soul, I come…’

As the only adopted daughter of a very famous and prestigious lineage of people who are not as delicate with emotions as they are with aesthetics, kidnapping has been a very real possibility on Rukia’s mind for a few years now.

To be fair, she supposes it goes back much further than that. If the world is not safe for the young adult heiress of a noble family, it certainly was never friendly to an orphan nobody girl who weighed about 90 pounds soaking wet.

The point remains- Rukia has been scared plenty of times, for most of her life, to varying levels of intensity. She’s been scared of real threats, potential outcomes, imaginary consequences and sometimes absolutely nothing at all. She knows what fear feels like, the way it makes her heart go fast and her brain prickle with electricity. Rukia is already so scared right now, and so used to feeling scared, that crawling through the air vent of a spooky laboratory while masked monsters prowl the hallways feels oddly meticulous.

Like, you know what? The world is already so buckwild. This might as well happen. Nobody’s ever given a shit about what Rukia thinks before, so she has nothing to lose buying into this twisted fantasy of monsters and mad scientists. What the fuck ever.

“I see a light up ahead.” Rukia observes, trying not to inhale foul dust and whatever else may contaminate the air in these vents. The passage ways here are spacious enough that Rukia has no problem scooting around, it’s almost like her lithe frame has some natural advantages suited to sneaking and debauchery.

Renji has a significantly less easy time, squeezing through the tight angles and banging against the metal walls. “Oh thank Christ.”

Light filters through the open slots of vent grate. Rukia presses her face against the cool metal, squinting to see out into the narrow hallway that looks concerningly like every other room or corridor in this mysterious labyrinth.

One of the behemoths in the hospital scrubs passes under her vision, carrying what looks like a heavy box of mechanical tools. From the size and mass of its burden, Rukia suspects that this particular creature is a delivery drone rather than security guarding this particular hallway. Still, she waits until the large figure is well out of her sight, then counts to ten just to make sure it isn’t cycling back.

When Rukia is fairly confident that the hall is clear, she starts pushing her hands against the grate. Luck upon luck, there appears to be a corner where the metal grate is loosely bound to the edge of the air vent, and with a little expert finagling Rukia manages to pry the grate from it’s place against the wall.

She lands against the floor with less grace than would be ideal, feeling the force of the impact against the soles of her feet and positive she will feel this all in her knees tomorrow morning. “Ow. Shitfuck.”

Renji follows after, landing on the floor with a more audible ‘thud’. “Nice job with the vent grates, Rukia. You’re not nearly as scrawny as you look!” He says, with genuine surprise and praise in his voice.

“Thanks.” Rukia’s eyes dart around their new surroundings on the way to semi-freedom. She takes her phone back out of her pocket and has another gander at the map on the screen. The arrow in the middle is flanked by two thick white lines, which are presumably the walls of the hallway they are now in. In the next room over, a small collection of bright red dots idle from one wall to the other, meandering around like big stupid bumblebees against a window. Rukia is not a gambling woman, but if she won’t be taking any chances with that particular room.

“There are more of these tube-thingys.” Renji observes, walking towards one of the glass containers like the ones they had observed earlier in the main hallway. It’s full of bubbling green liquid, like the mixed concoction of gelatin and monster energy drink. A shadowy, emaciated human figure is suspended within, as still as the grave. “Should we try to break them or something? We can’t just leave people stuck inside these.”

“I don’t if we even can break it, Renji. Unless we pound on them really good with our bare fists and feet.” Rukia admits, poking at her phone more. “I’ll take some more pictures. When we get out of here and show these to the police, they can come in here and break everyone out.”

With the camera function on, Rukia holds her phone up vertically to catch the whole length of the tube. The lens snaps, and as soon as a perfect digital rendering of the tube is displayed on her screen, a pleasant female voice echoes from the phone’s speakers. “New Metaverse data analyzed. Updating dictionary…”

“Oooh.” Rukia taps her thumb against a new button that appears on the screen, one that looks like a book or a journal. A new menu opens up, displaying the words ‘DICTIONARY’ in gothic text across the top.

The picture Rukia took of the glass tube is there, labeled with the word ‘COGNITION’ in bold.

 

**C O G N I T I O N :**

**A physical manifestation of how an individual perceives something or someone in reality, causing it to appear in that individual’s Palace.**

**Cognitions are not real in the sense that they exist in the real world. They are only representations.**

Rukia feels Renji lean over her shoulder, easily looming over her as he reads the words on her screen. “Wow. This is good, useful information that really makes sense. This is a good app.”

“Hush.” Rukia correctly estimates the location of Renji’s face and shoves her free hand into it. “I guess this dictionary will update whenever I take a picture of something important in this world. I think this means that the people in the tubes are just illusions?”

Renji pries her hand away from smushing his cheek, “‘This world’, huh? You still sound pretty positive that we’re actually in another dimension.”

“Please, Renji. Feel free to explain to me how the rec center transformed into an evil lab of monsters in a matter of seconds through the rational laws of known physics. I am totally ready for you to drop some fresh deductive reasoning on me.”

Renji grunts. “Fair ‘nuff.” Adopting a more agreeable tone, Renji’s voice shifts to become thoughtful. “So… assuming that this nav app of yours is truthful, we’re in a place called a ‘Palace’. And a Palace is full of ‘cognitions.’”

“Yeah, and not just a Palace. But a Palace that belongs to somebody.” Rukia points out. “I mean- we are in a laboratory, and Aporro Granz was dressed like an evil scientist. All these tubes and stuff make it look like he’s doing crazy experiments. If somebody is in charge here, it would definitely be him.”

“Sweet. If I wanted to be in some asshole’s delusional, egotistical scope of the real world, I definitely hoped it would be that guy’s. This is what I wanted.” Renji eyes his surroundings with a fresh, new peal of disdain. “Rukia, can you pull your map back up? Maybe it’ll show us a path out of here that’s less monster-y.”

That would be ideal, wouldn’t it? As it happens, however, none of the possible pathways Rukia and Renji could feasibly take appear to be without some risk of monster-y-ness.

The rec center- what the rec center used to be, at any rate- on Rukia’s map, the layout looks a bit like the letter H. The way they came from, where all the containers were, is on the far left, top corner of the H. The detour through the air vent took them to the bottom of the left half.

“If we backtrack a bit, there’s a split in the hallway that leads to the other side of the building.” Rukia says aloud, as if she were very clever and hard-boiled instead of flying by the seat of her pants. “I don’t exactly know where the exit is, but given that our other options are both dead ends, that’s what I’m leaning towards.”

“Alright, sounds like what is almost a plan.” Renji says, and he leans close to the walls and motions for Rukia to do the same, keeping look out for any other patrolling monsters that may happen to be nearby. Keeping close to the wall and low to the floor, Rukia and Renji employ their sneakiest positions because shit is about to get real.

 

There’s a concerning lack of windows to the outside in this building, adding to the sense of general claustrophobia and unease. Rukia realizes she has no idea if she and Renji are even on the ground level where they came in. For all she knows, they could be in the top of the tower and be forced to scale a hundred floors down in order to reach the door out.

She will solve that problem when she comes to it.

Rukia is small and fast and better suited to scouting ahead, much to Renji’s chagrin. It’s sweet that he wants to be the protective big brother here and keep poor, tiny Rukia safe, but if he thinks Rukia is just gonna sit on her ass and wait to be rescued then he has a whole slew of new ideas coming to him. Besides, the fact that he’s freaked out is already freaking her out.

Thankful that she wore comfortable, soft sneakers today, Rukia crouches behind a crate labeled MEDIKAL TOOLS. Since Aporro Granz does not seem to be the kind to experience dyslexia, Rukia suspects this was written by one of the monsters. She suspects this, because the monsters do not seem very smart on their own without bossy scientists to order them around

There are doors in this hallway leading into other rooms. Also in this hallway are windows that look into those rooms, perhaps for Aporro Granz to peer in on them as he is passing through and make sure everything is running smoothly. Unfortunately, most windows work in two directions- this means Rukia and Renji are just as likely to be seen from the inside as they are to see from the outside.

Rukia turns back to Renji and gestures for him to follow her, keeping low to the floor and under the windows. He follows her faithfully, stooping low to keep his massive shoulders and spiky hair out of sight. Dude is about as subtle as a car crash, but Renji is nobody’s fool.

“This progress is not pleasing to me.”

A snide, slightly muffled voice oozes from behind one of the walls. It conjures the same mental image of maliciously steepled fingers that Rukia attributes so readily to Szayel Aporro Granz, and both escapees halt in their tracks.

“The test case has not reacted to the treatment, Doctor.” An unfamiliar, deeper voice says. It sounds almost like someone is speaking under water, distant and echoing.

“Yes, that is precisely why I am displeased.” Granz sniffs. “It’s degrading enough that someone of my intellect must rely on the brute force of my lessers to arrange things for me, but that is simply the price of being so much more evolved than these monkeys. This ape in human clothing will be of use to me yet, once I get him moving.”

It sounds like his attention is focused, Rukia slowly leans upwards towards the edge of the window. In the glass, she sees the indigo eyes of her own reflection, and through that a much more solid and unwelcome figure to her sight.

Aporro Granz, still clad in his white lab coat and slick rubber gloves, leans over a long table while one of the masked monsters hovers around his side. His head is turned away from Rukia, but even from this angle she can see a sickly, eye-popping red dripping down Granz’s front and staining the perfect white of his coat.

“Fine craftsmanship, if I do say so myself. Considering the quality of the source material.” The pink-haired man says, the monster attending him offers a neatly folded towel to swipe his gloved hands off with. “Perhaps I won’t need to borrow samples from the live specimen after all.”

Rukia sees the shape Szayel is hovering over, about six feet long and covered by a white tarp, through which occasional dark red spots of blood can be spotted soaking through and dripping wetly to the floor. Red, also, are the strands of long hair towards the head of the table, as Granz briefly adjusts the tarp to reveal a glimpse of the body’s face.

A churning sensation grinding in her stomach, Rukia tries to cast that image from her mind forever. She becomes aware that Renji has also taken to peering through the glass, and when she glances over to him she sees his livid stare tightened on Szayel, eyes narrowed into dark little slivers of hate.

Rukia tugs on his arm, nodding towards the end of the hall with conviction. Renji reluctantly follows her crawl under the window, with Granz thankfully none the wiser to their presence. There’s no reason to keep lurking around here and subjecting themselves to the continued vamping of a megalomaniac when Rukia can easily do that from the comfort of her own dimension.

Just focus on getting out. Focus on getting home. Rukia has almost allowed herself a small fragment of optimism that they’ll both get out of this one piece when she hears one of the doors in the hall before them slide open.

In retrospect, with no clear cover to hide behind and the clearly empty cell that they left in their wake, it was an inevitability that Rukia and Renji were going to get caught.

“Two dangerous specimens have escaped from their container.” The watery voice broadcasts, booming across the hall. Rukia and Renji are both on their feet, and Rukia’s heels itch to run somewhere, anywhere. “Security report to hallway B for apprehension and neutralization.”  

Rukia bolts for the end of the hallway. The jig is up. The cat’s outta the bag. The cat is up and out of the bag and down the hallway, Rukia sees a masked monster approach her with menacing arms raised, and in a flash of brilliance and agility Rukia hits the floor and slides between its unsteady, lumbering legs. If she were not operating on pure terror alone, she would give herself a solid 10 for the graceful dive and a -2 for foresight.

Because it dawns on Rukia very quickly that Renji is no longer behind her.

She counts four monsters, two in front of Renji and two behind him. And Renji, who is not as quick or agile as Rukia but who is as brave as he is, as noble as he was to hang himself out to dry for the sake of a crumbling building, has his hands raised into fists in front of his face. Ready to box his way out like this is a schoolyard brawl behind the gymnasium.

“You really are something else, aren’t you, Abarai?”

Szayel Aporro Granz appears in the doorway, his voice and his presence filling the hall like a cloud of noxious gas. Rukia regrets looking at him the moment she even thinks of it, unable to tear her eyes away from his crimson-stained smock and all that blood dripping, staining, oozing. He wears the damp, scarlet stains like his second skin. “It’s almost insulting, the way you so stupidly think you can defy someone like myself. I told you this before- people like you are better off doing what your betters tell you.”

Renji’s face is hard. He knows, of course, that he can’t possibly win this fight, but that isn’t his intention. Rukia is aware that if Renji intends to do anything, it’s to buy enough time for Rukia to escape on her own.

And, knowing Renji, really mess up Szayel’s day by putting a few dents in his skull while he has the chance. “Get bent, you shitty little weasel.”

Szayel’s eyes are alien in their brightness, yellow blaring out of his skull like headlights. “How disappointing.” Thin, dry lips split open to reveal a shark-like smile. From within the hold of his lab coat something, glimmers metallically. The blade of a scalpel is summoned into Szayel’s hand and catches the gold of his eyes. “When I stitch you back together, I will make sure to close up that obnoxious mouth of yours. Orderlies, do hold him steady.”

Rukia squeaks out an urgent “No!” as she watches the monsters pin Renji to the wall, holding down his arms. Renji gasps as the air is knocked out of him, and Granz holds the small blade to his neck like he can see the dissection lines drawn in dotted ink. “Leave him alone!”  
  


**Your life is not your own to control anymore. The odds have been stacked so steeply against you, and so far in advance. You are most certainly too weak to escape a tragic end to this story.**

**But if my voice is reaching you, there may be hope for you yet…**

Aporro Granz seems to register Rukia, perhaps for the first time, with a rise of his thin eyebrow and laughter in his voice. “Do you hear that, Abarai? Your little guttertramp friend wants to be cut into pieces first. Maybe I’ll trade your life for hers, if she begs properly.”

Rukia feels cold sweat dribble down the back of her neck. There’s a little voice inside her, screaming. It tells her to run. That this is her chance to escape and to never look back, because that’s the only way she’ll get out of this alive.

Another voice tells her that she’s already dead. She was a deadwoman the moment she heard the name Granz from Renji’s lips, and whether she continues to fight or whether she curls into a ball and cries it will make no difference.

But Szayel said that he would let Renji go if she did as he said so she cannot run, dead or otherwise.

 

_Surely, you aren’t going to flee now?_

_Will you abandon your precious friend to save yourself? You are the only one who can save him._

_Was I wrong to believe… that you were a person with the desire to protect others?_

Rukia feels her feet carry her towards the scientist.

Renji’s eyes are wide and mad. He thrashes against the monsters holding him down, looking like he would rather wrench his arms out of his sockets than watch this continue. “Forget her, Granz! She’s nobody. I’m the one who owes you.”

“Hush, cretin. It’s rude to disrespect a lady.” Szayel beams almost warmly at Rukia. Still holding the silver scalpel, his arms are held out as if for a blood-streaked embrace. “There’s a good girl. I wonder what I’ll do with you first.”

 

_Very well then. It seems that our desires are truly in harmony to each other._

Rukia feels coldness inside her. Coldness.

And then mind-numbing, head-exploding pain.

She hears, instantly, Renji yell as she screams. Rukia puts her hands to her head and cries out in pain from this blinding, glaring, burning blue light.

It fills every corner of her vision.

It fills her ears like static.

It feels like she is being shot in the back of the head, very slowly but all at once, and Rukia feels tears and bile rise up in her. Lost in so much pain, she thinks she’s going to die.

She feels… like an explosion.

Absolutely alive and destructive.

 

_Vow to me, Rukia._

_I am thou, thou art I._

_Thou who art willing to defy whatever powers may seek to bind or destroy you, for the sake of delivering thine own judgement. To punish evil as you see fit._

Rukia feels her bones tremble, her brain throbs against the inside of her skull in a harsh drumbeat. She first stands on unsteady feet and then topples, finally falling onto her knees and trying to find purchase with her nails digging into her scalp. Everything is fire and ice.

And then the fire fades away. Only cold remains.

Rukia shakily stands on her feet, and she can see again. Szayel’s bloody visage. Renji’s petrified face.

 

_Call to me. Release the rage that thou hast been holding for so long!_

_Show the fearsome justice that lies within thy heart, to stand and seize this world with thine own hand. Master of dark forces, avenger of shattered souls._

 

“Yes.” Rukia hears herself say, through a mouth that tastes like cotton and ash. “I understand.”

Her hand rises to her face, and touches the icy cold shell of metal. From the top of Rukia’s brow to the bridge of her nose is the elegant guard of a knight’s visor.

Fingers curled around the edge of the visor, Rukia pulls. With the visor comes her skin, reluctantly to release its stubborn hold on her mask and her flesh, but Rukia is stronger and she pulls until she can feel blood pouring down her face. A thick and heady and sticky waterfall of ruby red. Until the mask is in her hand. Black. Black as winter midnight.

“Come to me,” Rukia says. Announces. Her voice booms in a way it never has before. “Jeanne d’Arc.”

 

What happens next is a confusing symphony of screaming, explosions, and blizzards.

This is the best way Rukia knows how to explain the monsters- the shadows- torn into shreds and melting into liquid darkness at her feet. Ripped into pieces like they were nothing by the tendrils of icles Rukia has willed into existence, each one tipped sharp enough to pierce flesh as if it were mere wet tissue paper.

The hall is coated in ice and frost and snow. It looks beautiful and crystalline. Even Renji has been speckled with frost, the coldness touching strands of his red hair and dark eyelashes with white, matching the white of his eyes and his teeth as he stares agape at Rukia.

Szayel is nowhere to be found, but Rukia has a suspicion he won’t remain that way for too long. But that is fine, since Rukia is not interested in that little gremlin at the moment.

She’s much more absorbed in the huge, beautiful blue young lady floating in front of her.

 _You’ve made a wise choice. You truly are a worthy companion to my power._ Jeanne d’arc says. Her short hair frames her face like the moon. She holds her arms loosely at her sides, spread like angel’s wings, and in one hand she grips a robust broadsword. She is gorgeous, and terrifying.

 

_I am the rebel’s soul that has been resting within you, my Trickster. From now on, our hearts will beat at one._

_Do not forget the bargain that you have made on this day._

With that, Jeanne disappears in a flash of shattering ice and howling wind. But she is far from gone.

Rukia feels Jeanne’s energy return to her, and feels the grip of the black mask descending over her face. She touches it again just to be sure, feeling the freezing metal once more with her gloved hand.

Renji leans on the wall for support, pulling himself up to an uneasy stand and shaking ice out of his clothes and hair. He looks… about as good as Rukia thinks one can look for his situation. She walks over to him and offers him her hand to help steady him.

“Thanks.” He shivers at the contact, cringing a little. “Your hand is like fucking ice.”

He doesn’t let go right away, though. Renji squeezes Rukia’s hand and turns her wrist over in his fingers, taking notice of the thick, black gloves reaching up to her elbows. “What was with… those powers. And… these clothes?”

“Clothes?” Ah, yes. Rukia casts her eyes down her body, having to look around the rectangular edges of her visor. Gone are her summer shorts and t-shirt. They have been replaced by a short, black tunic. Dark gray pants and undershirt cover her arms and legs, and soft, leathery black boots allow her feet to move soundlessly.

The new ensemble strikes Rukia as a very serious outfit, the only bit of frivolity for such an outfit is the silver little fleur-de-lis holding her collar together at her throat like an elegant broach.

It’s also very well-made. Soft but sturdy. Nice. Rukia holds her arms out and twists, trying to see herself better in these mysterious clothes. “I wonder what kind of fabric this is.”

“Rukia.” Renji groans and alright, she can sympathize with the fact that it’s been a long day for him.

“Right! Okay, so. I don’t know what happened. I heard a voice in my head.” Rukia starts counting on her fingers. Gosh, these gloves are very nice. “Ice happened everywhere. I think I’m magic now. Or crazy. Or Both.” Rukia uncurls her thumb as the final free finger on her right hand. “Aaand we should probably leave now, before Granz comes back with more shadows. Those monster things.”

Renji gives Rukia a lopsided look at first, but then he just shakes his head like trying to shake away his thoughts. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get you an’ your superhero-costumed ass outta here.”

 

They don’t run into more shadows for the rest of the way. Rukia can only assume that her powers took them by surprise, scattering Szayel and his underlings while they had no idea what was going on. If Rukia and Renji continue to loiter around too much, they won’t continue to be lucky.

And Rukia… Rukia feels kinda amazing. She doesn’t know if that’s one of her crazy new powers, like summoning ice ladies and huge storms of blizzards whenever she wants, or if she’s just all hyped up on adrenaline.

She still doesn’t feel super confident, charging along with Renji and knowing they might get jumped at any minute. Because having superpowers didn’t also suddenly make Rukia a dumbass. But it’s enlightening to know, at least, if they do get attacked, they have a sliver of a fighting chance.

Rukia counts her lucky stars (there are a lot of them today, apparently) that they find a staircase, stomping downwards to stumble right back into the front entrance of the lab. The place where they originally got knocked out and kidnapped.

“About goddamn time.” Renji wheezes with relief as he shoves the front door open, letting out the putrid air of the interior of the lab to the putrid air of the purple sky above it. “I guess we’re still in the Upsidedown, huh?”

Oh, right. Rukia recalls that she has a map. Quickly, she pats down the front of her very nice, sleek tunic and finds the slim indent of a pocket on her hip. When Rukia got dressed to go out this morning, she remembers putting her phone in one pocket and her wallet in the other. She doesn’t find her wallet, which is concerning, but she does still have her phone. It’s in a pocket that feels soft, like it’s lined with velvet. When Rukia takes it out, the LNT helpfully brings up the map she had been using earlier.

“It says there’s another exit.” Rukia points towards the street, directly across from the lab’s open double-doors. “There.”

Rukia is no expert on portals or dimensional gateways, but if she were to hazard a guess at what they looked like then this would be what came to mind. It looks like a mirage, the air glimmering as if warped by intense heat. A thick, frothy blue fog seems glued to the spot, simply rolling across the sidewalk in waves before retreating to its source. She doesn’t need to take a picture for the Dictionary, Rukia assumes that on the Dark Wikipedia this is the first result for ‘magic portal.’

She watches a sigh catch itself in Renji’s throat, though he stifles it as quick as he can. “If it’ll get us back, I’ll give anything a shot. You’re the boss.” Which somewhat catches her off guard. Well, Rukia guesses she is.

They leave the laboratory behind them quickly, but before Rukia makes it halfway across the courtyard and she feels something like a rush of hot air over her skin, prickling the hair on her arms and neck. She looks down to see smoke curling over her hands and her body, and within seconds the swanky knight costume she had been wearing disappears. Now she’s back to purple shorts and a monokuma t-shirt.

Rukia pats herself down. Yep, she’s all there. Including her wallet. Ah, good. She needed that. “Weird. Maybe it’s like, an adrenaline thing?”

“Maybe you have to spin around really fast and call upon the power of the moon.” Renji grins, folding one arm over his chest and using the other one to give Rukia an iconic finger gun. Rukia tries not to deflate over the loss of her costume. That had been proof the whole thing was real.

All that did happen, yeah? Jeanne d’Arc said their hearts would beat as one, and Rukia had to hold up her end of the bargain.

That meant that their contract was far from complete.

Rukia barely touches the portal before she is overcome by the woozy sensation of her stomach lurching. It truly does feel like, for lack of a better description, she is being flipped upside down. One moment, she is trapped in this dark and shadowy world, like a funhouse mirror-version of her own.

The next, it’s summer in Shibuya. The sky is blue. The grass is green. She and Renji are standing in front of the community rec center. There’s not a single evil lab in sight.

The pleasant voice from Rukia’s phone comes through once again, vying for attention from within Rukia’s shorts pocket. “You have now returned to the real world. Thank you for your hard work.”

Well.

That is very courteous of her to say.

Rukia looks towards Renji, who is looking upwards. “It got dark.” She follows his gaze to the sky, which has deepened to a muddled indigo following the setting of the Sun. “How long d’ya think we were in that… place.”

“It must have been hours.” Rukia says, and tries not to shiver. If they had died in that lab, after all, that would be it. No trace of a body to be found, it would be as if Rukia and Renji simply stop existing.

“Hmm.” Renji grunts, not sounding happy at all. “I missed the rest of the game, then. I hope the kids weren’t disappointed.” There are clouds gathering overhead. It looks ominously like the smog from Szayel’s laboratory. “Maybe someone came out t’ cover for me.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it worked out fine.” Rukia mumbles, though of course she has no idea herself. “How do you feel, by the way? You took a few mean hits back there.”

Renji puts his hand to his stomach, where Rukia knows she had seen him get run over by a metal cart hours earlier. His arms must have big, nasty bruises on them as well from being held down roughly. “Ugh. Don’t remind me. At least I know that what just happened definitely happened.”

Right. What just happened.

Whatever… the fuck that was.

“Let me take you home, okay?” Rukia says to Renji, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder from her low vantage point. “Don’t argue, you’re practically swaying on your feet. I’ll leave early and take the train home, I just wanna make sure you get to bed in one piece.”

Renji sulks and frowns like he might throw a fit, but his heart isn’t in it to be too prideful and protective. Rukia can tell that he’s exhausted, and he’ll perk up once he’s in his apartment with some hot foot and loud tv. He’ll be perfectly fine.

And Rukia. Well.

 

**There may be hope for you yet.**

Rukia has this sense that there is going to be a lot to do.

 


	6. The Fool (VI)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia has at last awoken her Persona, and the veil covering her world begins to peel back piece by piece. 
> 
> There is still, however, a series of troubling questions to haunt her. Primarily; Who made the MetaNav on her phone? And why?
> 
> W͖̰̥̭̙͞ị͠ͅl̦̦̜͈͔̰͉̟d̵̡͍c̮͟ͅa̴̱͇͖͙̖̯̤ŗ̴̹͎͖d̵̘͍͎̜̠̙̥͢͡ ̞̖̥͈͔͎͝>͏̹̝̕͝>̴̥̖̥͓͉>̬̥͔̙͕͖ ̸̨̡͙̟C̷͉h̴͍̫̥͈̻͓͖a͕͕̹͝r̨̢͓͓̝͚̰ͅi҉͖̗̩̲̖͕͖o҉͔̥̤̼̼̩t͍̫͖̻̙  
> ̮͝

Renji lives in apartment that’s pretty out of the way from anything that could feasibly be described as convenient. The neighborhood looks compact and small, like gentrification made an attempt and then was forced to recede because there was nothing of value to consume.

“You could probably afford a bigger place if you had a roommate.” Rukia observes, taking off her shoes in the doorway. Next to the mat, Renji has toed off his tennis shoes to sit next to his work boots, the latter of which are coated in a thin layer of mud and grass trimmings. An archeological leftover from Renji’s landscaping job, presumably.

“Rukia, I am in debt.” He reminds her with a dry voice thrown over his shoulder. The floorboards creak underneath Renji as he walks stiffly, and Rukia can see that he’s trying not to show her the way that his hand instinctively protects his sore midsection. His eyes art fixed on the aged futon in the middle of the main room, eager to finally give in to gravity.

After some graceful stumbling, Renji’s body sinks into the embrace of the cushions, which groan and complain under his weight “Ugh. Fuck. Stupid alternate dimension monster-attack bullshit.” Rukia watches his body roll effortfully onto his side, and one dark, dark eye peers at her inquisitively though the disheveled mane of red hair Renji has managed to throw over his face. “So, level with me, Rukia- We’re definitely in an X-file right now, yeah? We’re Twilight Zoning this shit, so I’m gonna bet that all physical evidence of this event has suddenly mysteriously disappeared so that no one in their right mind could believe us.”

“Uhh…” Rukia recovers her phone again, opening up her saved pictures. She fails to be surprised when there are no digital records of anything that she took in the lab, no photos of the cell or the glass tubes. “Yep, that appears to be the case. We are now full Creepypasta.”

“Oooooh! Spooky!” Renji’s fingers rise through the air to do a mysterious, superfluous wiggle. “Goddamn cliche.”

That lab. The ‘Palace’ as the app had called it. On the map (MetaNav?) it said the laboratory was the ‘Heretic’s Laboratory’.

Rukia walks past the entrance of the apartment and sits on the arm of Renji’s couch to perch there like a big owl, while Renji is facedown in the cushions next to her. He has band posters and soccer paraphernalia on his apartment walls, and she generously ignores the empty styrofoam cup of ramen on the side table. Aside from that, the place is alright. It does seem that Renji has a hard time keeping things organized and throwing things away, if the stack of magazines on the coffee table is anything to go by.

“We were in Aporro Granz’s mind. He sees himself as the person who owns the rec center and all the people inside. Who can do whatever he wants.”  

“Yeah.” Renji agrees, for once not trying to poke logic loops in the infuriatingly wild experience they just had. It’s refreshing to not be negged for a change. “And he almost killed us. Which was cool.”

“That is about the short and long of it, huh?”

Well, this has certainly been a productive meeting of the minds. Rukia twists herself off of the arm chair, putting the toes of her socks to the floor. Her feet pull her towards the kitchen, rifling through the cabinets and Renji’s meager collection of matching dishware until her fingers reach the rim of a glass.

“Where’re your painkillers?”

“Bathroom. Behind the mirror.” Renji can be heard rolling over on his back, shifting restlessly. “I mean, we have to do something, right? The Granz in that world- Like, if Granz is really that poisonous and nasty as we saw him, he’s probably hurting lots of other people. Draining the life outta’ them.”

Rukia returns to the room with a glass of water and three aspirin. She puts them down on the coffee table in front of Renji, raising her eyebrow at him. “Like you?”

The look Renji gives her as sulky, at best. “Yes, like me. Thanks for remembering.” Renji scoops up the pills and chugs the water in a big gulp, looking frustrated.

After a moment his body relaxes a little. Renji holds the empty glass in both his hands and taps his sock-clad foot on the floor. “Speaking of which… You really did totally save my ass back there. It was really cool and awesome of you, with those powers and the rescuing me and whatnot.”

“Eh. I mean- Yeah, I was pretty awesome, huh?” Rukia allows her lips to curl a little in a smile. “I guess… like, I sure don’t fully understand it myself, but once I got those powers and Jeanne d’Arc came to me, I started understanding things a bit more? But now I think I understand things that I still don’t even know. It kinda feels a little bit like brain overload.”

Rukia presses the tips of her fingers to her temples, trying to recover what was running through her mind when she ripped the mask off of her face. How did she even know to do that? Why did the presence of that mask and her power actually make her brave instead of even more scared? Why isn’t she still freaking out about it even now? She knows instinctively, and yet logically she doesn’t.

The thing that struck her the most, that seemed to cloud everything else, was that overwhelming sense of power. It went far beyond just conjuring a blizzard and some icicles. It was like liquid confidence was running through Rukia’s veins.

Rukia has never suffered illusions of grandeur. Never vividly fantasized that she had superpowers or was the strongest being in the galaxy, but if she did have any of those things she imagines that would be what it was like. Or like being Byakuya.

Jeanne’s face flashes in Rukia’s brain again. Her ‘rebel soul’. “When the Aporro Granz of that world saw me rebelling against his authority, maybe that made me like his rival in that world. My congitions versus his. I suppose it makes sense. If there’s a dimension where a person’s perceptions of the world manifest in some kind of cognitive structure, I don’t see why someone can’t come in with their own thoughts and fuck it up.”

“Do you think the real one knows what happened in his Palace world? I mean, I guess it didn’t even actually ‘happen’ in reality, so how would he know about it?” Renji taps on the rim of the glass, looking down into it. “Jesus, this is really conceptual. We have to just trust that this whole other universe behaves by a set of limitations the way our world does, but we don’t even know for sure what those limitations are.”

True. And now that the effects of having transformed into an awesome, mighty superhero has worn off, Rukia realizes that exhaustion is now hitting her hard like a speeding train into a fragile water balloon. There’s a heavy pull on her arms and legs, dragging her to the ground. The consequences for using those abilities earlier, maybe?

Rukia puts her hand to her head, willing herself not to lose concentration just yet. God, she could use a nap. “I have a feeling we could sit here debating the logistical properties of an inherently illogical dimension all day without really making any progress. The only way we could possibly learn more about that world and how we were even able to find it in the first place would be-”

Well. Going back, obviously.

Is it wrong for the idea to excite Rukia? Renji almost died. She almost died. Nothing could theoretically be less fun and exciting.

Slender fingers run through Rukia’s short hair, pushing her bangs back. “Well, let’s not worry about that now. You need to get some rest after all that. We can figure out more about this tomorrow.”

Renji folds his arms over his chest, she watches him hold a heavy sigh in his body with a stern pout fixed on his face. She can tell that he hates it, having no options but to wait. Rukia isn’t too happy about it, herself. But even if she has these powers to protect herself now (Persona, her brain helpfully informs itself. She has a Persona. Rukia doesn’t know how she knows that) Renji is still plain, ol’ no-powers human. She has to think about his safety above all else.

“Alright. Fine.” Renji finally deflates. “But I’m gonna stay mad about it. And I’m gonna take the biggest nap in the world. And then I’m gonna go to work tomorrow, because work didn’t stop being a thing I had to do. But then you and I are gonna figure this whole thing out and what there is to be done about it.”

“Don’t forget about dinner.” Rukia reminds him, feeling relief as Renji puts aside the empty glass of water. She thought, at first, that Renji just kept an unusually clean apartment for someone of his personality, though Rukia wonders now if maybe he just doesn’t spend a lot of time at home on his own. Rukia could learn a thing or two about not being such a homebody. Oh, that’s right. Renji has friends. “I’m gonna head out before I trip into another portal and do a 360 flip into an alternate dimension again.”

“Too soon.” Renji laughs dryly, before concern again clouds his features. “You gonna be okay making it home? Considering everything, I mean.”

“It’s still early. And I’ll be super-duper careful.” Rukia assures him, hopefully managing to sound as convincing as she wishes she were. A dismissive gesture waves away Renji’s worries as Rukia slips her sneakers back on. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, alright?”

“Be good.”

 

Strange for him to say. Strange for her to hear. Rukia vividly remembers Renji saying the same words to her in elementary school. The first day Renji went to middle school, in a different building than their elementary building. The first day since they met that they would be going to different schools. It had been those words that kept Rukia from diving headfirst into a total meltdown.

The administrators at the orphanage had no idea how Renji did it, putting up with her. Rukia feels her lips part in a grin, a glimmer of happiness flooding up from her chest. “You, too.”

 

The train ride home is uneventful. It contains all the ordinary collection of evening traffic that one would expect to make use of one of the world’s most convenient forms of public transit. It is a boring train ride that Rukia can only imagine to be complemented by every other boring train ride before it, and many more boring train rides to come in her lifetime.

The difference is that on this ride, Rukia has a concerning number of things to think about.

A laboratory. A phone app. Another dimension. The three are surely linked. The MetaNav on Rukia’s phone operated under the assumption that it’s functions would only be relevant to her when in that other world. What else is the app meant to do, then, if anything? Is Rukia the only one who has this tool? Are there others like her, with Personas?

On the subject of the app… applications need to have authors. Programmers. Distributors. Who made the app, and for what purpose? Why did they put it on her phone? Rukia can’t convince herself to believe in coincidences, that this was a happenstance of fate wrapped in a miracle and sprinkled with serendipity.

Hmm. These sure are a lot of questions that Rukia has, accompanied by a stiff lack of answers.  

The train comes to an unsteady halt. Rukia, standing, waiting, riding, crowded, watches the doors open up to the cold cement tunnels of the underground train station.

 

“Hello,” Rukia announces herself politely as she enters the Shoten. There is a side entrance to the building that Urahara, Tessai and the kids like to use when the storefront is closed. Rukia toes off her shoes and sets them down carefully next to the door. “I’m back.”

The mat next to the door contains everyone’s shoes, all lined up- aside, obviously, from Urahara, who seems to have no earthly want for footwear aside from antiquated wooden clogs. But there are Tessai’s brown loafers, Ururu’s pink sandals, Jinta’s beat-up tennis shoes, and…

Rukia stares, waking herself up to the reality that another pair have joined the shoe family. They look like blank ankle boots. Expensive, but well-loved.

There’s a peal of laughter that leaks out of the kitchen, though it isn’t a voice that Rukia easily recognizes. Obviously, since the only laughing around here she’s really observed has been Urahara’s infuriatingly fake chortles and an occasional mean snicker from Jinta. This voice sounds so lively, Rukia wonders if she’s mistakenly walked into the wrong house.

Yoruichi Shihoin is seated on top of the kitchen counter, a brown bottle of what Rukia believes may be whiskey (?) clutched by the neck in her fist.

“Rukia-chan!”” She crows with delight, grinning ear-to-ear. Her eyes are orange fire. Her skin shimmers in the yellow kitchen light like polished bronze. Urahara and Tessai are seated in kitchen chairs on either side of her like adoring sycophants around her kitchen throne. “Come in here this instant, young lady! It’s been ages!”

Rukia doesn’t have a lot of memories about Yoruichi to fall back on. Byakuya seemed to actively detest her company, but she was still somehow always around. This daughter of another noble family, a piece in the politics of the wealthy and elite that Rukia still didn’t fully understand back in the day.

She has memories, nestled somewhere between Rukia’s trysts of self-loathing and self-pity, of a beautiful young woman. Her violet hair framing her heart-shaped face, and her boisterous energy filling up the room, Yoruichi was not like most noblewoman Rukia had ever met before. She was not like most anyone Rukia had met before,

And then, just as quickly as she had appeared in Rukia’s life, the purple-haired lady was gone. No one spoke of her again. Not even Byakuya. And Rukia, who could not help but see the disappearance as a bad omen, did not ask.

 

She still looks stunning, a curtain of thick hair falling to her waist. Yoruichi hops down from the kitchen counter but still manages to tower over Rukia like an Amazonian princess, affectionately ruffling Rukia’s hair as if they are old, old friends. “You’ve grown a whole lot since I last saw you. You got even prettier! You’re the spitting image of Hisana- ah, but I bet you hear that all the time.”

The sudden and startling warmth of this woman stuns Rukia, which admittedly is not hard to do. “Oh. Well. Yeah, I suppose.” Yoruichi’s hands are warm in her hair, and she smells overwhelmingly like jasmine. “It’s good to see you again, Shihoin-san.”

“So formal! Did these two knuckleheads make you think you had to be all polite at home?” Yoruichi jabs her thumb towards Tessai and Urahara, with what Rukia thinks is affection but might also be disdain. Maybe both.

Tessai at least has the grace to look offended, sitting up in his chair and putting his hand to his heart sincerely. “Certainly not! Good hostmanship is a study I have dedicated myself to judiciously. Young Kuchiki-san could not hope to find a more welcoming atmosphere in this house!” Though Urahara seems to retreat under the bridge of his hat with a nervous grin under Yoruichi’s scrutiny.

“Sure.” Yoruichi rolls her eyes and takes a mighty, finishing swig of her bottle that drains it empty before putting a solid hand on Rukia’s shoulder. “You can relax a little, Rukia. We’re going to be living together. You and I should be friends!”

It’s been a very long day. Interdimensional travel is one thing for Rukia, but social interaction is pushing it. If Yoruichi starts asking Rukia how school is going and what she’s doing for work, Rukia will do a backflip and launch herself right into the Sun.

As it is, she doesn’t have the energy to fight Yoruichi seating her at the kitchen table. The dark-skinned woman shoos Urahara from his seat. “What are you doing, just waiting for someone to invite you to get off your butt? Go make tea or something! I wanna catch up with Rukia. Tessai, make sure he doesn’t set the house on fire.”

Rukia is reminded deeply of Matsumoto, Renji’s pretty friend that she met at the coffee shop what seems like forever ago. To be in the company of gorgeous, confident woman is a dangerous occupation indeed, but if the gay stars have laid out this destiny for Rukia then who is she to deny it?

“We’re already friends, aren’t we?” Rukia looks deep inside her to find some slivers of charisma tucked between the dust bunnies and lint. She does, after all, know Yoruichi, so there shouldn’t be a reason to be nervous. “I mean- I know you’re Nii-sama’s friend, but I liked hanging out with you when you came over.”

She laughs (cackles, really), kicking one leg up on the table and pushing her chair on its back legs hazardously. “Ah, Byakku-bo… that reminds me, I owe you and him an apology for not being here earlier to greet the two of you when I was supposed to. Duty called and whatnot, though he’d probably say it was something dumb and hilarious like ‘foolish trite’ and ‘distracting poppycock!’”

Rukia has doubts about the accuracy of Yoruichi’s ‘Byakuya’ impression, but the voice is remarkably spot-on.

She hears something crash in the kitchen, and the unmistakable sound of Tessai chastising Urahara scathingly, followed by the green-robed man’s attempt at pacifying. “We’ll buy a new one! That old thing was getting a little rusty anyways, don’t you think?” Rukia makes herself focus on an undisturbed Yoruichi.

“What kind of work do you do, Yoruichi-san?” Rukia tries to rack her brain back a couple years. Something about med school when talking about Yoruichi. “You were studying medicine…”

“Psychiatry.” Yoruichi corrects, interlacing her fingers together on her lap. “I am a doctor that specializes in one of the most complicated issues of all- the fragility of the human mind!”

She says the last part with a theatrically dramatic entrance, utterly charming in her refusal to take anything seriously. Yoruichi’s eyes flutter closed as a vacant smile stretches across her lips.

“I wanted to be here when you came in and give you a warm welcome so you wouldn’t feel so lonely, but another lab across the country had asked specifically for me a few days earlier. Some of my colleagues were studying the case of recent random mental breakdowns as a phenomena they called ‘Hysteria Fever’ and wanted my input. I admit, I was compelled to come over and give it a look-see for myself. You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”

Rukia feels her ears perk up. And this time, it’s not just polite intriuge. Rukia is actually a huge geek when it comes to ghost stories and weird occult stuff. Those girls sharing rumors at school made it sound like some gossip, another thing to obsess and overanalyze the lives of celebrities and politicians. If Rukia knew it was some kind of weird, unexplained phenomena, she might have looked it up herself sooner. Instead she’s been busy with… things and stuff.

“Is it actually hysteria?” She asks. Something smells like burning in the direction of the stove. She chooses to believe that it’s nothing flammable. “I only heard it was people acting impulsively. Losing all self-control due to stress and such. ‘Hysteria Fever’ makes it sound much more… well, like a disease.”

Yoruichi’s amber eyes fly open. Her smile becomes toothy once more. “Ah, you’re interested in these sci-fi cases, huh. Yeah, it seems pretty cut and dry, right? People losing all inhibitions and giving in to dark impulses, committing social taboos. But none of the recorded cases we’ve seen so far seem to fall into rational patterns. Like… lemme see if I can give you a good example.”

She scratches her head for a minute, eyebrows knitting together. Yoruichi’s attitude changes on a dime. Rukia understands why Byakuya always compared her to a cat.

… Or a demoness, as the case was. Rukia assumed that was for other reasons.

“So, let’s think of it this way.” Yoruichi says smartly. Her eyes glitter with intelligence, fiery and hot. “A person getting wrapped up in a scandalous affair isn’t all that rare, provided that certain conditions are met. We might first ask if this person who has the affair is already having marital problems at home, or the relationship has a power imbalance and the adulterer wants to establish dominance over their partner. Or let’s say there’s someone who takes money out of all their accounts and blows their life savings at the horse track- you’d expect that someone like that has a history of gambling addiction, or some other problems with instant gratification.”

Rukia listens intently. Trying to understand someone who does absurd things like this… Yoruichi’s work would probably benefit if she were the one able to go into people’s minds instead of Rukia.

“‘Mentally healthy’ is not a term I like to just throw around. Nobody’s the perfect model of mental health. No matter how ‘normal’ they might seem on the outside, it’s usually some big phony front for whatever weaknesses we’re all trying to hide.” Yoruichi laughs, and her long fingers push back strands of dark purple bangs from her face. “But these people, the ones who suffered from ‘Hysteria fever’, are probably about the closest examples of ‘normal’ as we can get. All successful, healthy individuals with no prior behavioral problems or signs of mental illness. But all of a sudden, one day- Boom! Complete shift in personality! And not just that, but all of their new negative behaviours are self-destructive, with no obvious explanation why!”

That is puzzling. Rukia’s nerves from earlier seem to fizzle away, replaced by confusion. Her legs fold over themselves, tightening her posture into a stiff line. Surely extreme trauma could result in a radical, sudden change in behavior. But what about these supposed ‘mentally healthy’ victims that Yoruichi is describing.

“Could the cause be physical instead of psychological?” Rukia asks, cocking her head at Yoruichi.

The older woman shakes her head. “Medical examinations turn up nothing. No irregularities, no drugs. Not even a noticeable difference between these patients and normal examples in MRI scans. The bigwig hospitals can’t wrap their heads around it.”

“I can imagine.” Rukia agrees. “It sounds like you have a pretty tough case, Yoruichi-san.”

“Well, it’s only a matter of time.” Yoruichi shrugs, waving away Rukia’s concern. “If there’s a lack of data, then of course the cause is gonna be unclear. We just have to keep looking, and everything will come to light eventually.”

This is an attitude Rukia wishes had a little more relevancy to her own situation. However, since she sadly can’t be Yoruichi Shihoin, Rukia will just have to focus on the breath-takingly little that actually is clear to her.

A polite but still interrupting “Ahem” interrupts the two women from their one-sided think tank. Urahara, looking weird and old and scrawny without his green coat, wields a trap of four teacups proudly.

“Some refreshments, ladies? I prepared tea for this occasion by myself. Without any outside help from another person at all.”

“Great job, Kisuke.” Rukia smiles to herself as she watches Yoruichi beam, so comfortable and so clever. The older woman closes her eyes and her lips part as she takes a relaxed sip of tea, now well and truly home. “This tea tastes like ass.”

 

It’s a while before Rukia can finally work up to telling Yoruichi that she’s tired, and looking forwards to going to bed. The fact that she will have to wake up tomorrow and attend two soul-sucking lectures and a lab session hits her ungracefully, and Rukia pushes her heavy, clumsy puppet body up the stairs to the guest room.

The bed may be squeaky and stiff but Rukia flies out of her pants and into its embrace, boneless against the mattress. What a day. Rukia could probably waste even more time trying to wrap the logistics of what happened earlier around her brain, but she already knows deep down that it’s pointless. Crazy powers. Hysteria Fever. Someone is fucking with her, she’s sure. But she has no proof who, or why, or how, or where the fuckery is coming from.

Gosh, it sure is exhausting and exciting for Rukia to have a purpose in her life. Like an actual, honest-to-God mystery that she’s gotta tease open the bow of ever so gently, before a bunch of spring-loaded weasels and snakes fly out and hit her in the face.

Rukia rolls over onto the edge of a thin, wide object stabbing her in the shoulder blade. It’s more muscle memory than anything else that compels Rukia to lay the laptop out flat on her lap and turn it on. She squints against the harsh light of her homescreen, and the ever-hurried blinking of Butterfly clamoring for her attention.

Renji’s orange Butterfly icon springs to life, slapping Rukia in the face with missed messages.

 

**Hey so Rukia something kind of came up that I need to talk to you about but you need to promise not to be mad ok?**

**You’re not there rn so I’m gonna assume you said yes. So now you can’t be mad.**

**I thought more about the shit today earlier with Granz and how it makes no sense. And how honestly it’s kinda overwhelming that only you and me know about it, like it’s some big dumb secret even though neither of us even wanted to go around sticking our toes into the septic tank of Granz’s brain anyways. Gross.**

**So I figured I’d needle Kira for ideas. Cuz when I’m stressed about stuff like this I usually call him up since he’s way smarter than me, and even if he doesn’t help he at least listens.**

**And I tried to explain the whole stupid and crazy story, but I guess this story was obviously too stupid and crazy and now Kira thinks I’m stupid and/or crazy. But it’s not like it was actually a secret we were keeping. I just thought that if we try to keep this to ourselves and then something happens to us, no one else would even be able to figure out what really went down.**

**I told him he could talk to you about it tomorrow, and we could meet up and hash things out. Maybe we need to go back to that world for him to believe us? Assuming that we can find a way to even get back. Assuming that doesn’t get us dead, which I know is a thing that could maybe occur.**

**So that is my situation I’m going to bed now I’m so angry and sleepy. I’m really sorry Rukia just please trust me Kira is a good kid he can help us.**

Hey, Renji. Inquiring minds want to know how many of those painkillers you took before going to bed.

Rukia rolls her eyes and sinks to the floor on her feet like jello, plugging the laptop into it’s charger against the wall. If Renji trusts him so much to tell him about the cognitive world, Rukia supposes she has no reason to be against explaining things to Izuru.

The trick will be in how to explain in the first place. Urgh.

Rukia turns off her desk light and slips under the covers. She’s a sleepy slug.

 

 

**Y̢ou h͡av̴e͡ ̶pa͢s̛s̢ȩd t͟h̛ȩ fi̵rst ͢m҉įles̶ton̡e͢ ̸o̕f ̢y̧o͟u̵r j̶ourn͜ey͏. Th҉i͠s͠ ͘i͏s ̶caus͡e̵ for͘ ̢cele͜b͟rat̕i͞on.  
  
I͘t w͏a͡s the͏ cho͝i͠c̵e ̛that yo͞u ̨m͞a͏de,̨ ͞a͏nd t͞ḩe̸ ̢p̴u͜r͠suit̷ of yo̢u̸r ͞g҉o͘al̨s͘,̨ t͞h͘at҉ ha̕ve a̢lr͞eady̶ ͞cha͞n̕g͠e̡d t̶h͡e͞ ̢c̵o̴urs͟e̕ ̧o̡f ͘yoųr̷ ҉d̨eşt̴in̢y.͠ These ch͟o͝ic͡e͞s͘ ̢w̨ill͘ ͜cont̛in̸ue̕ t͡ơ be ̛the ̢m̵o̢s̷t͟ i̵mp̨or̢t̨a͜n͡t a͝s͟p͝ec̸t̨ ̨o͞f aut̛hor̡ing y͡our f̕u͟ture.   
  
A̧ll ͟ch̵oic͏es̴ ҉are̴ imp̶o̧r̸t͜ant͏ o̡ne̷s͏.̧**

 

 

When she wakes up, Rukia finds that getting out of bed is something of a production. She feels restless, wiggling her toes under the sheets and trying to summon the details of the morning through squinting, irritable eyelids.

Fully rising involves troubling, aggravating things for Rukia such as turning off the alarm she had set for the morning on her phone. Taking a shower. Getting dressed. Other such contrivances. Must the world be so demanding and complicated?

Rukia manages to stumble down the stairs and into the kitchen, despite all adversities. Her brain begins to calculate the task of finding food to sustain her, when someone gently presses a red apple into Rukia’s hand. Reality de-fogs itself and Rukia realizes it’s Ururu, looking very smart and a little less glum than usual in her pressed school uniform. In a white blouse and gray pleated skirt over her slender frame, she actually looks like a person.

“Go’orin’.” Rukia says, then blinks hard. Let’s try that whole human communication thing again, shall we? “Where is everybody?”

“They’re still asleep-” Ururu begins, interrupted as Jinta’s vibrant head pops through the doorway. God. Even in his school uniform, this child is far too colorful and bright for Rukia’s sleepy eyes to comprehend.

“Everyone always stays up too late when Yoruichi-san is home!” He grumbles, fussing with his button-up shirt and tie. “Whether they’re drinkin’ or workin’.”

Rukia continues to watch him struggle with the tie for about two minutes, before placing the apple in her mouth for safekeeping and tying it for him herself. These kids are good.

 

She manages to make it through one whole lecture before Rukia gives in to curiosity. While the professor is deep in the midst of a serious lecture, she makes a note of what chapter the lecture is about in the textbook and quietly sets up her laptop.

Butterfly pops up on her toolbar, the flashing symbol alerting Rukia to a new message. A message from someone she has not spoken to before on this app. The icon is of an unfamiliar yellow swallowtail when Rukia summons it to the forefront.

 

**Miss Kuchiki,**

**I apologize for this forwardness. Abarai shared your contact information with me last night, and I thought I would wait for the morning to try to get in touch with you. That’s not to say I would only talk to you if there was something pressing me to do so. Only that in this case there actually was a prudent matter to discuss with you.**

**Sorry. I’ll be brief.**

**Abarai called me last night out of the blue, and said some troubling things. I want to try to help, but I can’t really understand what it is he’s trying to tell me and I’m worried about him. He said that you would be able to help explain everything. So. Here I am, asking you to explain everything.**

 

Rukia rubs her temples, eyes fluttering closed. Ah, yes. She almost forgot she would be trying to parse the cryptic events of the previous day with two knuckleheads, instead of merely one.

Rukia snaps back her reply quick as she can.

 

**How close are you to Renji’s apartment?**


	7. The Chariot (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia brings Izuru up to speed on the situation about the Cognitive World. But Renji’s compliance in helping unravel the origins of the MetaNav is called into question.
> 
>  
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> **Wildcard:**
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> **1\. a playing card that can have any value, suit, color, or other property in a game at the discretion of the player holding it.  
> **  
>  2\. a person or thing whose influence is u̵̪̗n̵̤͔̫͙͙p̡̫ͅr͏̞̜̜̮̹͚ȩ̫͉͔d͉̫͉͎̲͔̲ic̳̘̪̺t̠͚̱̤͖̲̼a͎͈b̫l͕͚̩͉̪͉͓e͓͓͓̝͕͍͡ or whose qualities ar̼̜͇̲͔͈̫̦e̞͕̫̖͕ ͈̤̞̕u̢̞̙̹͕̪̩̯͠n͇͖͞c̡̱͈̙̘e̬̪̼̰̰͘ͅr͏̦͎͔͇̳̮͜t̨̬͎̼͇̖̗͕̬a͕i̲͎̲̣̙̹̰n̸̨̫̭̤̗͚̦͎͜.̶̣͈ 

 Classes can’t pass soon enough for Rukia. Her hand moves of its own accord to jot down idle notes that may or may not be relevant to the art history lecture that her physical body is attending in this mortal plane.

Izuru had arranged with Rukia to meet on campus, where the task of explaining would fall conveniently and entirely on her shoulders. Renji would be working until the evening, the lucky duck, at which point they could rendezvous with him at his apartment and come up with some semblance of a plan.

The clock on the lecture hall wall ticks away at an agonizingly slow pace. Rukia supposes that if she really wanted to, she could slip out of lecture right now. She could skip her next two classes, even. Not like she doesn’t have more pressing matters to worry about right now, like super powers and the fabric of reality being concerningly not what she had spent a lifetime assuming it was.

However. Rukia’s grades matter. Her progress in this school matters. If she failed to do well in her classes and Byakuya found out, she might as well start sampling wedding cakes right now and just get the unbearable tension over with.

That makes it sound like Rukia even has anything better to do than be in class for most of the day. Like she has even the foggiest clue of what she’s going to say to Izuru when she sees him. Or what she’s going to do to keep Renji out of Aporro Granz’s nefarious clutches.

Rukia slowly becomes aware of the fact that she’s just been writing the word ‘impressionism’ in her notebook over and over again, and sets down her pen. If overthinking is getting her knowhere, she’ll just have to do something else. Maybe she ought to try not thing at all, and see where that gets her.

  
  
  


“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me it was all a misunderstanding, and I’m taking this just way too seriously.” Izuru says, hands clasped in his lap and looking dour, as he often does. “Usually, I’m the one who goes on these sarcastic tirades, you can see how someone way less niave than me would assume this is Abarai giving me comeuppance in the form of a severe punking.”

Rukia frowns sympathetically, sucking in air through her teeth. “I hate to tell you this, but there’s no punking to be happening here on this day.” This is the most punk-free zone she’s ever been in.

Izuru nods. The blond man doesn’t look very distressed, for someone who was just told something physically and completely impossible, but he doesn’t look like he’s not taking the situation seriously, either. He just as this kind of airy, spacey look to him. Rukia thinks this effect is exaggerated by his big, light, saucer-like eyes, reflecting light and looking distant no matter where he’s looking. “I thought you would say something like that.”

The two of them are sitting outside on a park bench, looking over the Gotei campus courtyard. Campus union falls somewhere between Izuru’s place of work in the residential district, and Renji’s apartment on the other side of Shibuya.

It’s lonely here in the evening, which Rukia appreciates for a thoroughly odd oversation like this. There are crickets singing, and the air has a kind of mystic, swampy quality to it for the incoming rain tonight. She cannot imagine how Izuru, wearing black slacks and a cardigan, is not suffocating in the heat, but he looks unbothered. Untouched by the air around him, he’s flung right out of space.

“Abarai is one of those unique people, you know. The kind with impossibly good intentions, despite everything. Even if he doesn’t claim to be a good person or to care, his actions speak louder than his words. I think he’s always kind of hated that about himself, you know?” Izuru says, looking down at his hands. His voice has kind of a low, raspy quality to it, it makes Rukia think she could fall asleep to the sound of him speaking. “Even if you don’t want to believe him, he’s such a blunt and sincere person that you can’t help seeing things from his point of view. Or perhaps I just owe that to him, personally.”

Rukia interlocks her own fingers between her knees, latently realizing she’s mirroring Izuru’s posture and instead smooths her hands over her lap. She definitely gets what Izuru is talking about, but something about this conversation feels… awkward?

The way Izuru talks about him so casually gives Rukia the sneaking suspicion that the way Izuru feels about Renji is awfully different from how Rukia feels about Renji. She thoughtfully pushes her bangs behind her ears for something to do, and tries not to let her mind wander to wondering if Renji knows about this.

“When you messaged me last night, I thought I’d have to work really hard to convince you about all this weird, supernatural portal stuff.” Rukia admits, tapping her heel against the cement sidewalk. “But it really sounds more like you’ve already convinced yourself.”

“Ah, well! I mean-” Izuru does seem to stoop his shoulders at that, going pink around the ears. Eyes are wide and white, ringed in his long lashes.“It’s not like any of the alternatives were much better. When Abarai started going on and on over the phone about dimensions and you having weird abilities, part of me wondered if he was having one of those mental breakdowns! The other option was that my best friend was lying to me, and that wasn’t exactly great either-”

Now it feels more like Rukia is trying to soothe an unpredictable, easily upset woodland creature. She tries to make some gentle noise that will calm the wild deer, hands up and quickly glancing around her periphery to see if anyone happened to wander by who would overhear. “Shush! Listen, Renji didn’t lie to you. I just… I dunno, I think it’d be dumb if we asked you to believe something as weird as this without giving you any proof.”

No matter how much the three of them believed in the cognitive world, after all, it doesn’t change the reality of the This world. Renji is still in trouble with Aporro Granz, and if what they saw in the Heretic’s Laboratory is a representation of Granz’s intentions and feelings, then Renji is in some deep shit indeed, as is everyone else who has had the misfortune into wandering into his web.

“It’s not just the Paranormal Activity part of it, either. I can’t just believe that this discovery was a coincidence that Renji and I happened to trip head over ass into.” Rukia says, almost more to herself than aloud to Izuru. “Whoever made that app on my phone, and made it possible for me to go to that world and get those powers and whatever, they did it so that I could find a way to help Renji.”

Izuru’s frown deepens, strands of flaxen bangs falling into his face. “Right. There is… that aspect as well.” He shakes his head, looking a little bit like a sheepdog trying to shake something out of his face. “I’d known since high school that Renji’s financial situation wasn’t great or anything. But he was always too independent or too stubborn to ask for help, so I thought it would be best to leave it alone and let him do what he wanted. I didn’t imagine things had gotten so dire, or else I would have done something. More to help, at least. Been more persistent, I guess?”

“Yeah, he’s not exactly the type to swallow his pride, is he?” Rukia smiles, and gets a little patter of sadness in her heart like rain. No matter how pure Renji’s intentions were, they wouldn’t stop him from backing himself into a corner. Cask of Amontillado’d his own ass right up.

It’s funny, Renji’s financial crisis shouldn’t even be immediately crisis right now. Figuring out what- _how_ Rukia got superpowers is. Obviously, she wouldn’t have them if there wasn’t a logical reason, right? But she can’t just put Renji on hold while she Sherlocks this weird, random riddle. And because they found the portal to Granz’s mind, Rukia can’t help but feel it would be an oversight not to consider the two problems as connected to each other.

Nobody has ever expected anything great from Rukia before. Nothing unique or special, not once in her life. But these cryptic clues and paranormal happenings seem so extremely specifically tailored to Rukia, from the message on her phone to Jeanne d’Arc’s contract. To ignore these guidances seems a waste, or even a fatal mistake that would surely come back to haunt her if they were ignored. For all she knows, Rukia is walking directly into the belly of the beast, which might make her an idiot. But she’d be an even bigger idiot of Idiotsburg if she didn’t try to find out why.

“Listen, Kira.” Rukia says, eyes fluttering closed to quiet the thoughts racing around her head. “Let’s go to Renji’s place, have a team meeting. We’ll figure out a way to show you the other world, just to erase all the doubts in your mind that Renji and I are telling the truth and get that outta the way. Once we’re all convinced that none of us are crazy, we’ll… do something. I dunno. I haven’t thought that far ahead. But we’ll definitely do something more productive than tossing around ‘is it or isn’t it’ statements.”

“You don’t sound horribly confident about this whole thing. Even though you seem absolutely dead set on convincing me of something I’m already suspending my disbelief about.” Izuru points out, raising his brows under his bangs. “Are you sure _you’re_ sold on all this?”

“I’m trying not to think too hard about that.” Rukia sits up from the bench, brushing herself down unnecessarily.

  


Izuru calls Renji as they wait at the train station, and Rukia studies the lit interior of the station with its halo of fluorescent light on the crowd of people waiting to take the train home. 

“Kuchiki-san and I are on our way to your place night now, though you’re obviously preoccupied. I presume your key is still above the door.” Izuru’s voice is slightly muted into the shell where his phone meets his palm. He faces away from Rukia when he speaks. “Call me back when you get this message.”

A frustrated sigh escapes Izuru, frowning at it intensely as if that would summon Renji’s response any sooner. “Late evening at the theater, I suppose. Don’t know what I was expecting.” The blue phone case is returned to his pocket. “Abarai needs a new occupation. His superiors at this job are completely unreasonable.”

Rukia watches the long strand of her bang flutter in front of her breath. Her memory jogs back to what Renji mentioned about his work situation. “He was in landscaping before, yeah? Renji mentioned he got hurt on the job, that’s why he made a shady deal with Aporro Granz in the first place.”

“Yes. Abarai was up in a very tall tree, trimming the branches. Like, with the kind of tool where the blades is on the end of a long stick? He told me there was an unexpected break in the branch he standing was on, and when he fell he cut himself with the trimming tool. He ended up slicing his leg open pretty badly on the way down.”

Rukia cringes. “Yeesh.”

“It was… yeah, unfortunate to say the least.” Izuru takes his seat on the bench next to her. “But Abarai bounces back quickly, as he’s want to do. And it just generally seemed like the people in our friend group were prone to dangerous incidents. Such as, I don’t know, a motorcycle accident.”

“That’s a rather particular example.”

“He’s a very particular person.” Izuru says in a voice that implies fondness of an exasperated nature. “Hopefully you will get to meet him, once things settle down and it becomes easier to gather people in one group without plans overlapping.”

Yes, good luck with that. Rukia met Izuru and Matsumoto in one night, and that was already a very emotionally demanding evening. Though, admittedly, not for that specific reason. Rukia’s not just the kind of person who’s so introverted that she hates hanging out in public. Why would you even think that? What’s wrong with you?

She wouldn’t mind hanging out with Renji, Izuru, and Matsumoto again, however. And just do something calm for a change of pace.

Izuru’s lips are set in a deep frown. Rukia once heard that it takes more muscles in one’s face to smile than to frown, but one wouldn’t know that by looking at Izuru Kira. “I just hope… Well, maybe that’s not right.” There he goes, having conversations with himself again. Almost as if he doesn’t know Rukia can hear him. “....If bad luck really follows my friends around, then getting used to that was probably a mistake.  
  
  
  
  


The neon lights from the video screen painted yellow ghost images against the ceiling. Against the ear-splitting symphony of several different electronic ditties played at once, a compute symphony, colorful reflections from the various screens spilled over young faces that were either lit with delight or twisted in concentration. Each child who manned their station handled the controls of their consol with the laser-like focus of a general orchestrating their weapons of destruction. The revelry of the bloodbath was a heady, intoxicating mixture.

The video arcade, even in the early 2000’s, was already falling out of fashion. The lush carpet did more to collect dust molecules and stray wads of gum than inspire a welcoming atmosphere. At least half of the game machines were broken beyond repair, but their status could be reported to the half-unconscious teen wearing a greasy shirt that said “STAFF”, who would supposedly let his supervisor know about whatever it was you were bothering him about.

It was also a handful of blocks away from the middle school, within walking distance from the orphanage if one didn’t mind taking a long trek out in the cold.

Rukia’s eyes narrow intently on the screen, wielding the joystick with masterful wobbles. In the game, her muscle-bound avatar mirrors the movement of her hand, bobbing up and down while grainy, manly grunts of manliness echo from the speaker.

Even at twelve, Rukia thinks games like these are pretty goofy. But the novelty of them is enticing somehow, so shiny and sincere that makes up for the painfully shallow cliches. And at any rate, a few pops at the arcade machines are cheap enough to afford a on her wholesome salary from shoveling the snow out of people’s driveways.

“I got you this time, Rukia. Nowhere to hide!”

Rukia occupies one side of the consol. A fourteen-year-old Renji, the other. Still lanky and gaunt, like there’s not enough of his skin to account for the full, gangly mass of him. Still caught in the acne-ridden no-man’s land between adolescence and puberty, he’s all elbows and knees sticking out of his school uniform. Not that Rukia cuts a much prettier figure herself, with her baby-chub face sticking out of the hand-me-down blouse.

“Are you seeing this brutality? I hope you have insurance on this place of business, because I am about to wreck your damn shop!”

“Less talking, more playing, chumpass.” Rukia frowns, instinctively tensing her shoulders downwards as if to better dodge the punch coming from Renji’s avatar straight into her guy’s face. Worse comes to worse, she’s not above elbowing Renji in the ribs to gain the upperhand. He’ll be mad about it, but he’ll find it in his heart to forgive Rukia after a good minute or two of pouting.

But it doesn’t look like she’ll need to take this fight to the physical realm. A tinkling of bells rings musically from the arcade machine speaker, hushing the intense fighting music. Renji’s voice drops with instantaneous dread. “Oh no…”

“Oh, yes!” Rukia’s face rises in a malicious grin as a symbol of a red and black eye appears just in front of her character. She presses the button to activate it, watching her avatar dissolve into red and black pixels.

On screen, against the backdrop of the gothic citadel that serves as the battlefield, Rukia watches the little animation of her avatar wielding an enormous, almost comically dramatic-looking sword. “Oh, Renji, are you ready to say hello to my little friend? Here comes the Cursed Blade of A Thousand Souls!”

“More like the Cursed Joke of a Thousand Lame-ass Cheaters.” Renji scowls resentfully, and is forced to watch as Rukia and her ridiculously awesome gear cut through his character, rendering him a bloody, gory mess in a way that almost definitely isn’t an appropriate visual for impressionable youths to consume. The two children are surely warped by this experience. “Oh my God, are you kidding me? You always get the game-breaking power-ups, it’s such a loser move! How do you even do that?”

The end screen reflects light up onto Rukia’s round face, beaming proudly and standing up on her tiptoes in her victory. “I dunno. Maybe it’s because, I’m, uhhh… amazing in every way?”

“Amazing at getting lucky.” He frowns with great disdain and disappointment, those caterpillar eyebrows of his furrowing across his dark eyes. Renji’s observations are not unfounded. When it comes to games like this, Rukia is just notoriously good at being in the right place at the right time. If only that ability could transfer to real life, she’d be rich. “You wanna go one more time, winner-take-all ultimate champion style?”

“Yeah, sure. Lemme treat you on this one-” Rukia’s hand fumbles with her cardigan pocket, fingers hitting the bottom where a small hole is beginning to work its way in between the seams. She wiggles her finger through the gap. “Crap. Actually, I’m all tapped out.”

Renji rummages around his pants pockets hopefully, though there is not a single jingle of coins to be found on his person. “Me, too.” He looks at her, then angles the whole, wiry height of him around the blocky shape of the arcade machine to catch sight of the greasy teenager on duty today, who happens to be idly cracking his gum and browsing a dog-eared volume of questionable manga in a dreadfully bored manner. “What’dya think? Call it a day, or stick around a little longer?”

She watches the teenager, too. Rukia has seen this pizza-face on his shift enough times to know his deal. If he catches them misbehaving, he won’t hesitate to throw them out on their butts. And yet-

That depends on if he catches them.

“It’s still early.” Rukia points out. She runs her stout fingers through her hair, the edge of her nails finding the metal tip of her barrette securing her bangs back. When she undoes the clasp, dark hair falls into her eyes and she hands the barrette over to Renji.

He, in turn, takes it immediately to the change machine near the entrance of the arcade, jamming the metal edge into the mouth of the lock with expert finesse. “Keep your eyes peeled this time. If I lose T.V. privileges cuz’ Hachigen-san hears about this, I’m gonna be pissed.”

“Then stop making so much noise.” Rukia hisses, but keeps one eye over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m lucky, remember?”  
  
  


 

“You know where Renji hides the key to his front door?”

“Of course I do.” Izuru says. He opens up the door of Renji’s building for Rukia to slip in, all gentlemanly as he does. “I lost the key to my own apartment for a while at one point, so Abarai had a spare key made for his place so that I could stay over while I had my lock changed. Eventually, I found my old key in a fish tank, but by that point the damage had been done." 

“Ah, yes. A fish tank. The perfectly logical place for a key to be. Can’t believe you didn’t think of that before.”

“We had Matsumoto’s birthday at an aquarium. Only so much you can prepare for. Adult life gets so weird, sometimes odd shit might as well just happen. Anyways, it came in handy after Renji got hurt, I could come around and help him while he couldn’t walk. It was a blessing in disguise."  


Rukia has only been to Renji’s apartment one time before, and most of that experience was spent in something of a panicked daze. Still, it’s easy enough to navigate up the narrow staircase, up the daunting number of floors to where she vaguely recalls Renji’s door to be.

The day that she was over, it was quiet in the building. Almost peaceful, with nothing more than the faint yapping of someone’s dog to distract. Rukia can see how an environment like that might compliment Renji, a modest but private accomodation where he can come home to unwind after an eventful day, and where he won’t get all worked up again by too much outside stimulation. Rukia thinks the quiet would be nice, but to be fair she’s infamously introverted.

It is far from quiet now. Rukia and Izuru both direct wide-eyed looks upwards in response to a sudden burst of noise, something like a hideous crunching or crashing on the floor above, like great, enormous teeth closing down noisily on bones to render them splintered. Those same jaws feel as though they’re coming down on Rukia’s throat.

There was once a time where mildly upsetting things could happen without Rukia assuming the worst.

 

She’s running up the stairs, leaving a stunned Izuru in the dust as Rukia sprints up two steps at a time until she’s at Renji’s front door. And when she puts her hands to the doorknob she’s not surprised to find the lock busted. Dead like the shell of a mutilated sea creature left out in the Sun.  


It’s not a pretty sight- Rukia knows this will be the case before she’s even set foot in the room. The futon has been upended and the frame splintered down the middle, broken in half like the spine of a book. There’s garbage and crushed beer cans generously sprinkled across the floor, the beginning of the trash apocalypse where God just went hog wild on this particular scene of the rubbish ragnarok.

On the other side of the room, directly across from the doorway where Rukia is standing, she sees an open window, and the shredded curtains carry a breeze inside. Through glimpses of the tattered fabric, moonlight catches off the black iron of the fire escape ominously, with the ladder unfolded and the muddy half-moon cresent of a shoe print on the windowsill.

“Renji?” Rukia feels metal and plastic crunch under her shoes as she steps into the threshold, eyes scanning for signs of human life.

Behind her, she hears Izuru’s footsteps following behind her, and the pause of him surveying the room in disbelief.  “Oh, shit…”

A narrow hallway cuts from the living room and kitchen area, and from there Rukia can see the open door of Renji’s bedroom. Also trashed, of course, with the white entrails of mattress leaking out of long slashes in the mattress torso. As she approaches, Rukia’s shoe sticks against something on the floor.

She hopes, bravely, that it won’t be blood, and then she is predictably disappointed.

Rukia isn’t squeamish. Not even a little bit, certain experiences with flying insects aside. But her heart beats shallowly in her chest, barely hearing Izuru’s voice behind her. “Should we call the police?” ‘

She doesn’t respond. Rukia’s ears are alert, electric, catching the sound of someone else shuffling around in the apartment.

Rukia remembers the bathroom, where she got Renji’s aspirin from the medicine cabinet. A thin stripe of light narrowly squeaks out of the gap under the bathroom door, and Rukia’s hand pulls it open robotically.  


She’s seen Renji beat up and bruised before, getting into fights at school or butting heads with his dorm mates in the orphanage. It was another one of those constant occurrences that Rukia grew up knowing as normal. Fighting was just another part of Renji being a boy that Rukia’s tender girl-brain couldn’t fathom. Until she got old enough to realize that no, actually, kids shouldn’t be fighting no matter the circumstances, and a mature adult should have stepped in responsibly, and maybe her childhood was kind of fucked up.

The cruelty of children doesn’t compare to the malice of adults, though. Rukia’s eyes catch the sea of blood-stained wads of toilet paper around Renji’s ankles, presumably most of them used to sop up the geysers of blood that have dried under each of Renji’s nostrils.

“Christ.” Rukia hears herself breathe, and Renji shoots her a poisonous look from a twin set of bruised, blackened eyes.

“Uh, you ever heard of knocking?” He sneers at her, blood dried to a crusty brown still smeared down the front of his security staff t-shirt. Renji must have just gotten home from work when his place was broken into- assuming that he wasn’t followed from the theater. “Stop starin’ at me like that. You’re gonna catch flies with that open mouth of yours.”

“Granz sent somebody here-” Rukia says crossly.

Renji snorts, tossing another stained wad of toilet paper to the floor. “Nothing gets past you, eh, Ace Detective Kuchiki?”

“You should call the police. You need protection.”

“Not that simple.”

Izuru hovers behind Rukia, and she feels his feet shuffle side to side at her back. “Kuchiki-san, may I…”

She steps back to let him pass into the bathroom, and as Izuru approaches Renji leans back, giving him an ornery look from the depths of his bruised and swollen face-meat. “This isn’t the first time I’ve stitched you back together like this. Please, Abarai, just let me have a look at you. I won’t bite.”

Rukia watches Izuru’s fingertips brush over the bridge of Renji’s noise, causing him to hiss and recoil like a startled cat. “Broken. I’ll reset it, just calm down for a minute. Those bruises don’t look great, though.” She can’t imagine they feel great either, but there’s a subdued reluctance to Renji as he gives in to Izuru’s prodding.

There’s a great deal of wincing and flashing of teeth as Izuru gingerly touches Renji’s face, standing on his tiptoes even as Renji keeps trying to shake him off. Rukia frowns as Izuru lays his hands down, one cupping Renji’s jaw to keep him from squirming, the other one securing it’s gentle grip on the bridge of the crooked nose.

Finally, there’s a sickening, audible ‘pop’ as Izuru slops Renji’s nose back into place, making Rukia’s stomach churn. Renji hisses, “Fuck!” and his eyes fly shut and his lips pull back over long teeth and raw, pink gums.

Izuru pulls his hands back, brows furrowed. “Better?”

“No. Yes. Jesus, Kira!” Speaking muffled through his fingers, Renji’s shoulder bangs against Izuru’s as he walks past. His shadow passes over Rukia, stomping to the kitchen and slamming around the cabinets of the wrecked apartment. Muttering and pacing like an animal enclosed. “Goddamn shit everywhere… ‘Course they took my good shit, the damn fucking shit-eating cheapshit…”

Her eyes flick to Izuru’s, who reflects her fear back to her with no comfort. Rukia wants to sink into the drywall and become another stain on the cheap wallpaper. The loud rustling of Renji unfurling a plastic garbage bag sounds like crashing thunder or scraping metal, his hair falls over his shoulders like unfurling flower petals as he stoops down to pick up garbage and whatever might be broken.

Rukia’s hands are twitchy, and part of her wants out. She wants to pull her own great escape out of the window, backflip down the fire escape away from complicated Renji and his complicated life. Izuru won’t mind being left to clean up the mess, it appears that he often is. At any rate, Rukia has her own problems.

It wouldn’t really be that bad, right? After all, the last time Rukia tried to help somebody, she got herself thoroughly drop-kicked out of her house and into Shibuya. _Surely_ if she tries to do the same thing twice in a row, it will have different consequences!

Rukia thinks she might be a little bit of a dumbass.

She sits on her haunches next to a particularly inviting pile of garbage that doesn’t seem to have any sharp bits in it and starts scooping it up in her arms. Renji’s carpet is stained underneath, reeking of alcohol and blood. It is such a shame, for such a small place in a cheap neighborhood, Rukia realizes this place was nice.

A crumpled piece of cardboard is yanked out of her hand by Renji, who shoves it in the trash bag forcefully. “You two still here?” He refuses to make eye contact, glaring into the depths of the bag like he’d rather hang it up and start pummeling the shit out of it instead. “At least one’a my neighbors have probably called the cops, so you oughta make yourself scarce before it gets busy in here.”

She knows, obviously, that the police won’t be of any help to Renji. Even if Szayel doesn’t actually have a legal weight over Renji’s head, that would require Renji to even admit the truth in the first place. Or, at least, a version of the truth. The version where he’s a fuck-up and brought this upon himself.

Rukia feels Izuru’s eyes on her back, determinedly not looking at Renji. It makes her weirdly mad- Renji isn’t like Rukia. He has friends, people who can help him and who care about his happiness so bad stuff doesn’t happen to him. It’s not like he’s her. “He can’t get away with this. You know you’re gonna have to stand up to him at some point.”

“I have to do fuck all with a side of jack shit! I told you, this wasn’t your problem.” The bag crunches as Renji tosses it onto the floor, shifting his hands to the bisected futon frame and flipping it right-side up. Rukia is surprised how easily the large furniture moves when a distraught Renji is throwing it around, his large and tense body making his surroundings look small. It lands with a mournful groan, probably causing even more damage than it was before. “And don’t look at me like that- givin’ me those big, puppy-dog eyes. Condescending as hell.”

He’s never seriously raised his voice at her before, Rukia finds she dislikes it. Rukia churlishly frowns, lip-over-teeth. “I’m not giving you a look.”

“You are, Kuchiki. Like the look a nun gives a gimpy puppy.”

“Renji!”

“ _What?_ ” Renji looks at her as he slaps his palms down on the wooden edge of the futon, and it rattles under the weight of his anger. His eyes are electric, dark little pinpricks of fire, set in white slits and ringed in deep violet. “I don’t want your help, Kuchiki! I don’t want you t’ come in here with your sensibilities, and your pity, an’ your wide-eyed ogling like I’m some poor, stupid, low-class, dumbshit oaf and you’re so much more goddamn better than me now!”

Bile threatens to crawl up Rukia’s throat. She feels her eyes wide open even as her vision swims. If she were just a little bit younger Rukia would have been in tears two minutes ago, but she doesn’t deserve this! “I don’t think I’m better than you! Why do you keep acting like we’re different? I didn’t want any of this!” Rukia fists pound against her own chest like a goddamn gorilla, and she knows they’re not talking about Aporro Granz anymore. “I care about _you,_ Renji! I wanna help you, because I’m your fucking friend!”

Renji laughs suddenly, and it scares her. A high, barking, squealing noise. “You know fuck all about me! Thinkin’ we can just go back to being pals- you know how badly I wished I was you? That some fancy fuck in a suit was gonna show up, take me home, pay my bills? Tell me I was special, like I was fucking Cinderella. But it turns out some of us are just destined to be shit-poor all our lives! There’s your hot fucking college-level philosophy lecture of the day!”

She’s definitely almost crying now, tears stinging the corner of Rukia’s eyes. A retort doesn’t come to Rukia because she feels like if she opens her mouth, a whimper will escape, so she just dabs at the corner of her lashes and scowls at the torn corner of the carpet.

“What’dya think, Trust Fund Baby? Got any two-cents to add?” Renji adds after a beat of silence, jutting his chin towards Izuru still standing in the bathroom hall. “Thought so. Hit the road, kids. You oughta go home before things get messy here.”

“You’re an asshole.” Rukia’s voice chokes up as she hisses, and she feels Izuru yank on her elbow with urgency.

“Kuchiki-san, he’s right. About leaving, I mean…” And she wants to stay, to spit venom at Renji the way he did at her, but she can’t decide what she wants to tell him. Not to be jealous of her, because she got to live a life he never did? To calm his tits because his home was destroyed? She wants to punch and kick and scream but there is nothing left to destroy.

The chance slips out of her fingers anyways, Izuru starts to push her towards the door with his hand on the small of her back. And as soon as he shifts her an inch, suddenly Rukia is flying. The room around her is a blur as she storms into the apartment hallway. Tears are suddenly dry.

She knows what she has to do to make this right. To save Renji while proving him wrong about her at the same time.

Rukia barely even hears Izuru close Renji’s front door behind him. His voice is meek as a mouse. “Kuchiki-san… that was… I’m sorry…” but she is preoccupied with pulling her phone out of her pocket. She doesn’t even think as she pounds her thumb against the screen, over the red and black eye.


End file.
